So it would be fair to say Carriers are in a good place. Various upgrades and the unique squadrons from Corellian Conflict have all been really good to the archetype. While it's an efficient way to deliver dice on target it's not infallible and it's harder for a carrier group to separate effectively or reorient to meet threats from different angles.

I'd also say the cruiser, i.e. smaller snips, are in a pretty good place. There's a pretty solid array of useful upgrades that allow them to make their presence felt even with less dice (TRC, APTs or ACMs) and their agility can make them at least somewhat durable even if most won't stand up to direct fire very long.

That being said, the Battleship i.e. Large ships and even some of the mediums like the VSD are currently struggling from what I can see. The drawbacks of Battleships are pretty severe. You usually get a fair bit of point bloat, because if you're already investing 120, why not 126 or 130, etc. Even if the upgrades are somewhate necessary, this still inflates their cost pretty substantially. They also only have one pool of defense tokens making them excessively vulnerable to things that mess with defense tokens ala Intel Officers and soon to be Sloane. They also generally have one pretty godly arc and all the others are at best on the firepower of the cruiser making them much easier to dodge (getting to the side of a gladiator doesn't really change the dice and CR90 saves you one red, but getting in the side of an ISD costs him 4 attack dice). But at least for you troubles you get...actually what the hell do you get? The only real bonus is that because all of your points are focused in one place it tends to be all or nothing, but it looks too often to be the 'all' side of that equation.

With the talk about squadrons, I started looking at the ships in Armada after worlds and TBH I didn't come to the conclusion that carriers or cruisers were overpowered, but that battleships were underpowered. Why isn't there an upgrade (or hell, I'd be fine with just a change to the core rules) that says that Large ships don't take damage from rams except by other large ships (or even any ship smaller than itself)? As much as I thought about it, I'd also be fine with adding a line to gunnery teams "If this is equipped on a large ship, it may attack the same target with both attacks". Possibly even a Large ship only upgrade that adds a flak die, which seems like a good compromise as there's a much harder cap on the number large ships than any other size category. There's a massive opportunity cost going into these behemoths, but it feels too much like their just point sinks that make it easier for the other player to get VPs.

Possible I'm just crazy, but I like the big ships and they're so hard to justify now.

CAVEAT: I am one of those idiots that still thinks eventually he'll figure out how double ISDs work. However, I am fairly Imperial biased, so my estimations of the Liberty and Home One may be more estimations than understandings.

So, in general, I would agree that nothing is truly overpowered, but that battleships are probably mildly underpowered. I would however note that this is less true than it used to be, and that Wave 3 helped the battleships just as it helped squadron-based fleet; it just helped battleships less. When battleships are on the table, I would posit that they have a higher strategic and deployment skill floor, but a much lower maneuver skill floor than a cruiser fleet, given that while each battleship maneuver must be careful, there are fewer of them than the cruisers, which must be just as if not more careful to arc-dodge/set up double arcs. Reinforced Blast Doors has been a godsend to the battleships, especially the looming Imperials, and Flechette Torpedoes have made squadrons less threatening to Imperials with Raider escort (something of a second order buff). However, they are not enough to keep up with the squads arms race, and FT really only helps Imperials. (Who knows, it might be relevant on Hammerheads, but we'd need a preview to know that. /end shade)

Re: battleships vs cruisers, I think it is exactly balanced right now. Cruiser fleets can overwhelm BB defense tokens, but the BBs can obliterate cruisers with good fire control. BBs are more likely to fall off that edge, since any improvements to weapons or defenses will be more present in a cruiser fleet, but for now, they're close enough skill and objectives can still easily swing matches.

I'm going to deviate into BB-BB matchups and note that the Rebel BBs are probably slightly underpowered relative to the Imperial class. They're short an admiral who boosts their survivability like Motti, and are essentially forced to choose between mobile high-output damage (the Liberty) and every other fleet role (Home One) whereas the Imperial just does it all, with a slightly lower agility ceiling. Barring certain setups , the Imperial usually gets more mileage out of a given upgrade, but the Rebels can build to overmatch in any one area (e.g. normally XI7 Imperial is meaner than XI7 Home One unless Ackbar), so tweaking Rebel builds to more evenly match will be difficult. I will also note that this difference is the hair past marginal, given that the cheaper Rebel BBs allow for greater support options (and cheaper support options to boot), so this may not be an area to worry about.

The one matchup that I would think BBs are underpowered against is a heavy bomber ball (Rhymer or Aceholes, doesn't really matter). I understand this is supposed to be the area that gives lighter ship builds some points-efficient damage to push back against one-shot CR90s/Raiders, but right now I think it is tilted towards the squadrons, especially after objectives. I'm wary of simply improving anti-squadron damage results, primarily because I don't think it would make a difference, especially against the notorious Aceholes. I think adding some way to mitigate incoming bomber damage (see Major Derlin, but tuned to squadrons) would be more effective in the long run. It doesn't need to be much either, but something. If we're intent on improving anti-squadron results, I would add a Large-only Officer or Turbo (really anything other than Weapons Team) that allows an additional anti-squadron salvo from an arc not previously used to do anti-squadron fire. I have not tested this, but it's my guess for how to do it. Making it not Weapons Team also doesn't continue to leave Home One out of all the fun.

Those are my thoughts, such as they are.

I would respectfully disagree. I believe that battleships (ISDs and MC80s in particular) are in a good place right now. A fleet with a single battleship and 5 activations is solid. (I believe that MC80 fleet won at least two regionals and did a good showing at worlds)

33 minutes ago, pt106 said:

I would respectfully disagree. I believe that battleships (ISDs and MC80s in particular) are in a good place right now. A fleet with a single battleship and 5 activations is solid. (I believe that MC80 fleet won at least two regionals and did a good showing at worlds)

MC80 Home One, 5+ activation fleets:

7 lists, 3 regionals top 4 (2 winners), no bottom Quarter. (highest squad points 64)

Liberty 5+ activation fleets:

5 lists, 2 regionals top 4 (1 winner), 2 bottom quarter. (top 4 highest squad points 59)

ISD 5+ activation fleets

10 lists, 2 top 4, 2 bottom quarter. (one of those top 2 finishers had 117 squad points, but the ship itself was equipped with Tua, RBD, & OE. The other top 2 ISD was Relentless, Gun Team, X17, ECM, 0 squads)

Conclusion: PT106's assertion is supported by regionals data. Battleships with 4 escort ships are competitive, even with limited squad cover.

Go below 5 activations, and the lists become much less competitive, especially if they aren't carrier lists. (44 lists with at least 1 medium & less than 80 points in squads, 4 top 4, 16 bottom quarter)

I'm an Imperial player. Mythics, one of the locals, as far as I'm aware pioneered the Rieekan fighter build in our local area as I've faced the build for months on end with little success. Most of my attempts have been with medium and heavy ships, because they are my favorite Imperial ships in the game and I'm stubborn. Based on constant losses, I've come to some conclusions supporting why battleship/gunship play is dead.

I've tackled big ships shooting at fighters elsewhere. If you have a gunship, and if your opponent brings lots of fighters, there is no recourse except to rough it out and probably lose ships for little gain. In theory these big ships are supposed to weather the damage long enough to kill their carriers behind them, but this notion fails for a few reasons:
1. Rebel Carriers as a whole, even loaded up, are cheaper than the Imperial equivalent because of faction design rules and because their small ships are better. In an even exchange of the best carriers, Yavaris has a better chance of eliminating an offensive fighter squadron in the first turn, and destorying the capital ship behind it in the second. Such is the power of Bombers with stacked enhancements. I don't consider trading an entire ISD for Yavaris alone to be worth it.
2. All capital ships have pathetic AA to the point where it's more efficient bringing fighters of your own, than relying on you ship's AA dice to defeat squadrons. The only exception is on the Raider and the Nebulon Escort Frigate. Demolisher is seeing some more prominence going to the II version and shooting at fighters, but Demo doing this isn't some kind of miracle exception and it's not a medium-large ship. The problem is only exasperated on big ships because, for all the points you pay, you're not effective against squadrons.
3. Capital ship defenses are not designed to withstand attrition from a large number of small attacks. It's how the Rebels operate, and they've taken this (TRC-90s, Fighters) to an art form. What is an ISD-II or VSD supposed to do against all of these attacks when they keep coming in? Their only advantage is shield strength and hull. But this can be eroded very quickly with new cards offering constant damage. Since big ship defenses have not scaled up accordingly, they are weak.

Capital ship play is best when it's high battery exchanges. An ISD-II rolls a massive battery against an MC-80. That MC-80 braces, then uses an advanced projector redirect to spread damage on inconsequential shields before returning the favor. In theory these large batteries utterly crush small ships, and they can if the small ships are stupid enough to get too close. But small ships have a few workarounds to de-power large battery attacks. Some small ships just avoid the dangerous arcs entirely (maneuvering or kiting CR-90s). Some have fantastic titles that give them a vast defensive bonus (Admonition, Foresight). The Rebels have several commanders to enhance the defensive strengths of their ships (Rieekan, Mon Mothma, Cracken vs only Motti). Some ships don't care about playing defensive, build up like christmas trees and go out all on the offensive (Demolisher) to wipe out big ships before they can attack and escape their firing arc.

Since the game awards advantages to players with more deployments, more activations, and more potent attacks to exhaust a small number of defense tokens, big ships are falling out of vogue. They cannot kill small ships fast enough to make up their points, and they are often on the receiving end of attacks because, forced to activate first, they get no attacks when walking into an ambush of several ships prepared to attack them.

The only response for the Empire has been either to abandon their large-medium ships for small ship play (GZs with Aces, Demolisher, Arquitens, Raiders), or try to create alpha strike carriers and take advantage of their generally higher fighter numbers (Rhymerballs, or aces). The only gunship I've seen successfully is Deveastator, paired with Demolisher, yet this build was nowhere to be seen in Worlds.

I long for the day when I don't have to feel I should take maximum squadrons just to be competitive against players that take max squadrons. I wish I don't have to consider munchkin lists (like 6x ARQs) just to compete in a tournament. I don't want fighter play to be the only way to be competitive in this game. I long for my fighting Star Destroyers again, I don't like them being nothing but space taxis for Fighters- the real stars of the show.

That's how I see it.

19 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

That's how I see it.

Norse, you're a good friend, but I feel like you are letting Mythic's list stand as the benchmark you have to beat, and getting yourself down when you can't do it. Can you beat Mythic when he flies anything else? I can't, not even close. Last time I flew against him, I was driving an MC30 swarm that I went on to win the tournament with, had perfect die rolls multiple times, and still got beaten 8-3. And he was flying an imperial medium-ships low-squad list. (VSDs & INTs, I think?)

I can't tell you how other imperial admirals are being competitive in regionals against heavy squadrons with gunship ISDs. But they are. I do know that if they have 5 activations, they are reasonably competitive, and if they don't, they generally aren't. But I don't know what they are doing with the supporting ships to deal with the fighters & carriers. 5 activations isn't a panacea, but it should help.

Sadly, I just can't get over to GKF, due to parental duties, so I can't offer to give you someone to fight other than Mythic. If you wanted to drop by Cupertino on a weekend, I'd love to get beaten up for the glory of the Empire, as long as you don't mind occasional screaming baby.

1 hour ago, Baltanok said:

I can't tell you how other imperial admirals are being competitive in regionals against heavy squadrons with gunship ISDs. But they are. I do know that if they have 5 activations, they are reasonably competitive, and if they don't, they generally aren't. But I don't know what they are doing with the supporting ships to deal with the fighters & carriers. 5 activations isn't a panacea, but it should help.

I'm interested in seeing the tracking on 4 vs 5 vs 6 ships and what gets brought during store championship season. Were 4 ship Imps really not competitive during Regionals?

Never mind, just scrolled up and saw the earlier comment.

2 hours ago, Norsehound said:

I'm an Imperial player. Mythics, one of the locals, as far as I'm aware pioneered the Rieekan fighter build in our local area as I've faced the build for months on end with little success. Most of my attempts have been with medium and heavy ships, because they are my favorite Imperial ships in the game and I'm stubborn. Based on constant losses, I've come to some conclusions supporting why battleship/gunship play is dead.

I've tackled big ships shooting at fighters elsewhere. If you have a gunship, and if your opponent brings lots of fighters, there is no recourse except to rough it out and probably lose ships for little gain. In theory these big ships are supposed to weather the damage long enough to kill their carriers behind them, but this notion fails for a few reasons:
1. Rebel Carriers as a whole, even loaded up, are cheaper than the Imperial equivalent because of faction design rules and because their small ships are better. In an even exchange of the best carriers, Yavaris has a better chance of eliminating an offensive fighter squadron in the first turn, and destorying the capital ship behind it in the second. Such is the power of Bombers with stacked enhancements. I don't consider trading an entire ISD for Yavaris alone to be worth it.
2. All capital ships have pathetic AA to the point where it's more efficient bringing fighters of your own, than relying on you ship's AA dice to defeat squadrons. The only exception is on the Raider and the Nebulon Escort Frigate. Demolisher is seeing some more prominence going to the II version and shooting at fighters, but Demo doing this isn't some kind of miracle exception and it's not a medium-large ship. The problem is only exasperated on big ships because, for all the points you pay, you're not effective against squadrons.
3. Capital ship defenses are not designed to withstand attrition from a large number of small attacks. It's how the Rebels operate, and they've taken this (TRC-90s, Fighters) to an art form. What is an ISD-II or VSD supposed to do against all of these attacks when they keep coming in? Their only advantage is shield strength and hull. But this can be eroded very quickly with new cards offering constant damage. Since big ship defenses have not scaled up accordingly, they are weak.

Capital ship play is best when it's high battery exchanges. An ISD-II rolls a massive battery against an MC-80. That MC-80 braces, then uses an advanced projector redirect to spread damage on inconsequential shields before returning the favor. In theory these large batteries utterly crush small ships, and they can if the small ships are stupid enough to get too close. But small ships have a few workarounds to de-power large battery attacks. Some small ships just avoid the dangerous arcs entirely (maneuvering or kiting CR-90s). Some have fantastic titles that give them a vast defensive bonus (Admonition, Foresight). The Rebels have several commanders to enhance the defensive strengths of their ships (Rieekan, Mon Mothma, Cracken vs only Motti). Some ships don't care about playing defensive, build up like christmas trees and go out all on the offensive (Demolisher) to wipe out big ships before they can attack and escape their firing arc.

Since the game awards advantages to players with more deployments, more activations, and more potent attacks to exhaust a small number of defense tokens, big ships are falling out of vogue. They cannot kill small ships fast enough to make up their points, and they are often on the receiving end of attacks because, forced to activate first, they get no attacks when walking into an ambush of several ships prepared to attack them.

The only response for the Empire has been either to abandon their large-medium ships for small ship play (GZs with Aces, Demolisher, Arquitens, Raiders), or try to create alpha strike carriers and take advantage of their generally higher fighter numbers (Rhymerballs, or aces). The only gunship I've seen successfully is Deveastator, paired with Demolisher, yet this build was nowhere to be seen in Worlds.

I long for the day when I don't have to feel I should take maximum squadrons just to be competitive against players that take max squadrons. I wish I don't have to consider munchkin lists (like 6x ARQs) just to compete in a tournament. I don't want fighter play to be the only way to be competitive in this game. I long for my fighting Star Destroyers again, I don't like them being nothing but space taxis for Fighters- the real stars of the show.

That's how I see it.

That's how I see it too.

And I'm not one to have a build sit fondly in my opponent's repertoire that's considered unbeatable. But at this point, my Armada life is pretty ded.

I dunno how to have fun when I know, this other build is simply more effective, and has been over months and months of direct attempts to break it.

Sorry, I guess we like bashing our heads into a walls, and our heads are finally giving way.

1 hour ago, Baltanok said:

Norse, you're a good friend, but I feel like you are letting Mythic's list stand as the benchmark you have to beat, and getting yourself down when you can't do it. Can you beat Mythic when he flies anything else? I can't, not even close. Last time I flew against him, I was driving an MC30 swarm that I went on to win the tournament with, had perfect die rolls multiple times, and still got beaten 8-3. And he was flying an imperial medium-ships low-squad list. (VSDs & INTs, I think?)

I can't tell you how other imperial admirals are being competitive in regionals against heavy squadrons with gunship ISDs. But they are. I do know that if they have 5 activations, they are reasonably competitive, and if they don't, they generally aren't. But I don't know what they are doing with the supporting ships to deal with the fighters & carriers. 5 activations isn't a panacea, but it should help.

Sadly, I just can't get over to GKF, due to parental duties, so I can't offer to give you someone to fight other than Mythic. If you wanted to drop by Cupertino on a weekend, I'd love to get beaten up for the glory of the Empire, as long as you don't mind occasional screaming baby.

Fighting Mythic's list as often as I have has made me think about how it works and how it does so well. I dunno, seems to me some of why it does is kind of obvious. Activate useless ships until your opponent is in the ambush zone? Capital ships can't swat fighters down when Fighters are and have great damage multipliers? Swarms of small ships have an easier time doing aggregate damage against big targets? Single-attack large batteries are wasted against small ships?

All of these things are strong. Strong enough that several of the top Worlds lists operate on these principles to win. My ISD-VSD-VSD list I wish I could run wouldn't stand a chance.

I was at the Utah Regional mythics brought the aceholes lists. The Meta out here was already yavaris B-wings/bombers. I bought a 4 activation ISD demo list and came in third. I never did have the opportunity to play mythics and while I lost my first game, to yavaris B-wings it was more because I had my ISD in a bad spot Than anything. I went on to make a strong comeback against two other yavaris lists and hiked my way up to 3rd. Now with that said I would and did change the list up after regionals, but I have had no trouble being competitive and successful with an ISD. after testing out many different variations I would always take JJ over Motti because JJ pulls double duty he is a good defensive option as he keeps you out of places you ought not be ie overlapping fighters, being in multiple ships arcs etc and he brings your big guns to bear more often and thus increases your damage output. JJ dose take some getting used to unlike Motti but once you have him down he dose far more than Motti could ever do for your ISD game.

11 hours ago, Norsehound said:

3. Capital ship defenses are not designed to withstand attrition from a large number of small attacks. It's how the Rebels operate, and they've taken this (TRC-90s, Fighters) to an art form. What is an ISD-II or VSD supposed to do against all of these attacks when they keep coming in? Their only advantage is shield strength and hull. But this can be eroded very quickly with new cards offering constant damage. Since big ship defenses have not scaled up accordingly, they are weak.

This has been my experience as well and why I always look at non-token defenses for my large ships. Brace tokens are great, but they are such a limited resource. That's part of why I think Reinforced Blast Doors are really better than ECMs. Yes, ECMs can save you from a big hit, but RBDs can kick in and help you can recover from a bunch of smaller hits. I always look for ways to add defenses beyond my tokens before going back and adding things like ECM or AP that make my tokens better.

The Imperials have some good choices there:

• RBDs
• Admiral Montferrat - TRC corvettes hate this guy
• Needa - An evade is often better than a Contain
• Motti
• Jerjerrod - Arc dodging ISDs for the win!
• Medical Team
• Targeting Scrambler

These by no means solve all the issues with large ship durability, but I started having better results once I looked at ways to defend my big ships beyond the tokens.

7 hours ago, Norsehound said:

Fighting Mythic's list as often as I have has made me think about how it works and how it does so well. I dunno, seems to me some of why it does is kind of obvious. Activate useless ships until your opponent is in the ambush zone? Capital ships can't swat fighters down when Fighters are and have great damage multipliers? Swarms of small ships have an easier time doing aggregate damage against big targets? Single-attack large batteries are wasted against small ships?

All of these things are strong. Strong enough that several of the top Worlds lists operate on these principles to win. My ISD-VSD-VSD list I wish I could run wouldn't stand a chance.

Activate useless ships: True. Counter by having 5 activations, so they can't outlast you. Battleships gain more power from having stall activations than smaller ships, because now they are moving into your more-deadly ambush zone, and fewer ships are left unactivated to ambush you.

Swarm: having multiple ships in mutual supporting range, especially with different mixes of fire arcs, makes it a lot harder for the Torpedo-boat admiral to get in & out unscathed. ARQs are a good escort if you are worried about TRC90s.

Weak AA: True. But the math behind the game balance is such that it's difficult to make AA upgrades strong enough to fight off a bomber list, without making fighters obsolete. And if fighters go obsolete, then carrier lists will be all-bombers, all the time. I think we should be hoping for defensive upgrades that improve anti-fighter survivability, or upgrades that improve the effectiveness of medium-points fighter cover without requiring ships to be all carriers. Cards like Sloane, for example, who turns generic TIEs into the most points efficient anti-ace & anti-ship squads in the game. Sloane TIEs also are a great way to threaten TRC90s. Do they shoot, and then risk having the red evade stripped by a TIE?

For the LOL's, Needa your Quasar Fire 2, and TRC a key enemy squadron.

Single large attacks wasted: The only targets that waste a significant portion of an ISD's firepower are flotillas, and then only in blue/black range. What other targets go from untouched to dead from an ISD's front arc?

2 hours ago, shmitty said:

This has been my experience as well and why I always look at non-token defenses for my large ships. Brace tokens are great, but they are such a limited resource. That's part of why I think Reinforced Blast Doors are really better than ECMs. Yes, ECMs can save you from a big hit, but RBDs can kick in and help you can recover from a bunch of smaller hits. I always look for ways to add defenses beyond my tokens before going back and adding things like ECM or AP that make my tokens better.

I put ECMs in my regional list I did not even have to use it once and asked myself why did I pay 7 points for nothing. When playing with JJ ECMs becomes even less appealing as you just avoid the hard hitting arcs I'm a big supporter of blast doors over ECMs. I feel that you will always get something out of blast doors were ECMs are more expensive and may not even trigger once.

ISD's are NOT battle ships

Fighters and bombers killed the Battle ship concept in real life, and in the star wars world there really are only carriers of all sizes. ISDs are super carriers not battle ships. If you play them as BB's they will die to players using them as carriers because carriers have longer ranged weapons called fighters and.

The inventor of Star Wars got all his space combat ideas from movies and TV shows about WWII fighters, bombers and Navy combat. Expecting Armada to not play out like the battle of midway or the Coral Sea, is just a "pipe dream" for the lack of a better term.

If you want the battle of Jutland in space (that was the last big Battle ship fight), then star wars is the wrong fiction for you.

there is a good reason why you can't have more the 30% fighters in a fleet.

53 minutes ago, ouzel said:

ISDs are super carriers not battle ships. If you play them as BB's they will die to players using them as carriers because carriers have longer ranged weapons called fighters and.

I find your lack of faith in ISD disturbing

ISDs can be used as supercarriers and it is a valid use, however they can (and often are) used in a battleship role and are devastating in that role in the hands of a skilled player.

4 hours ago, shmitty said:

This has been my experience as well and why I always look at non-token defenses for my large ships. Brace tokens are great, but they are such a limited resource. That's part of why I think Reinforced Blast Doors are really better than ECMs. Yes, ECMs can save you from a big hit, but RBDs can kick in and help you can recover from a bunch of smaller hits. I always look for ways to add defenses beyond my tokens before going back and adding things like ECM or AP that make my tokens better.

The Imperials have some good choices there:

• RBDs
• Admiral Montferrat - TRC corvettes hate this guy
• Needa - An evade is often better than a Contain
• Motti
• Jerjerrod - Arc dodging ISDs for the win!
• Medical Team
• Targeting Scrambler

These by no means solve all the issues with large ship durability, but I started having better results once I looked at ways to defend my big ships beyond the tokens.

Needa, Tua (and by extension Montferrat for ISDs) all take up officer slots and all work only in specific ways. Needa's evade token becomes useless at close range, Tua is a gift for only one ship, etx. What I really crave is a nice generic defense option to layer on, say, three VSDs. If Lando was a generic, they'd go on all three ships, so I have something to help protect them. Their single brace is too often locked down by accuracy, forcing the ship to absorb ALL damage, from long range shots to the rare big battery ship that does fire.

Meanwhile, the Rebels have commanders that do all of this for the ships under their banner. Mon Mothma protects basically every rebel ship in play except for the large ships. We've already seen what Rieekan does. Cracken is also available for ships that like high-speed runs and skirt the edge of fire, taking away flanking guns' teeth. This frees up their officer slots for things like intel officers. It doesn't hurt that they have some officers Imperial big ships would love to have (Like Lando).

I keep knocking JJ on VSDs because I still don't think he's as much of an advantage as people think. Sure, I can turn better, but I really need help evading enemy ships by maneuver or protection. Nobody helps the former, Motti is the best we got of the latter, because Tagge's timing makes him impossible to rely on. JJ is used for turning to make attacks better, but he can't help me dodge attacks the way Cracken or Mon Mothma can.

Btw, I've tried Targeting scramblers shielding two VSDs. As I recall, I got my front shields shredded off by a Liberty pair long range, and then lost both before they got a chance to use their second row of dice. The only thing Targting Scramblers protects ships from is a Demolisher run... I was very disappointed at the lack of effect this card had for VSDs.

3 hours ago, Baltanok said:

Activate useless ships: True. Counter by having 5 activations, so they can't outlast you. Battleships gain more power from having stall activations than smaller ships, because now they are moving into your more-deadly ambush zone, and fewer ships are left unactivated to ambush you.

Swarm: having multiple ships in mutual supporting range, especially with different mixes of fire arcs, makes it a lot harder for the Torpedo-boat admiral to get in & out unscathed. ARQs are a good escort if you are worried about TRC90s.

Weak AA: True. But the math behind the game balance is such that it's difficult to make AA upgrades strong enough to fight off a bomber list, without making fighters obsolete. And if fighters go obsolete, then carrier lists will be all-bombers, all the time. I think we should be hoping for defensive upgrades that improve anti-fighter survivability, or upgrades that improve the effectiveness of medium-points fighter cover without requiring ships to be all carriers. Cards like Sloane, for example, who turns generic TIEs into the most points efficient anti-ace & anti-ship squads in the game. Sloane TIEs also are a great way to threaten TRC90s. Do they shoot, and then risk having the red evade stripped by a TIE?

For the LOL's, Needa your Quasar Fire 2, and TRC a key enemy squadron.

Single large attacks wasted: The only targets that waste a significant portion of an ISD's firepower are flotillas, and then only in blue/black range. What other targets go from untouched to dead from an ISD's front arc?

Activation: What this tells me is that I can never bother to buy medium-large ships, I must need small ships to win the activation war. That, or go without upgrades for an activation advantage. There goes my hopes for an all medium-heavy battleship list with screening fighter support.

Swarm: Even when ships get grouped up, what happens is the outlier VSD/big ship gets targeted and chipped away first, opening up a flank for the swarm to get behind the rest of the battle line.

Weak AA: I think worlds proved that Fighters are in no danger of being rendered obsolite. All I ask is the ability for capital ships to have some response to fighter attacks if we're willing to put in the price for it. I'm not asking for a hard nerf to Yavaris or carriers as a whole if there's some way for big ships to be a better threat to small ships. If only QLTs were black dice, or counted more faces on the die!

Single Large Attacks Wasted: Have you ever observed sometimes when you over-kill a CR-90 by a significant margin? That's what I mean- sometimes rolling 8+ hits on a ship is unnecessary but the entire battery has to be used on one attack.

2 hours ago, ouzel said:

ISDs are super carriers not battle ships.

ISDs are battleship, troop carriers, fighter carriers, planetary assault vessels, patrol vessels, and everything else. The Empire designed a HUGE ship, put everything on it, and it is the one-size-fits-all solution to problems. Any problem too big for one ISD, you send three ISDs.

And while you're right about the fact that Battleships were made obsolete by bombers of various types, Armada is supposed to be a capitol ship game. I'm happy to have squadrons, as they are a huge part of the SW feel, but if they are as effective as all this, why does the Rebellion even bother with cap ships? Their fighters have hyperdrives.

1 minute ago, JgzMan said:

why does the Rebellion even bother with cap ships? Their fighters have hyperdrives.

Honestly?

(As someone who once trained as a Military Pilot...)

53 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Honestly?

(As someone who once trained as a Military Pilot...)

Because you can only poop in a bag so often before you get tired of not being able to wipe properly.

But this doesn't explain why they bring their capital ships into combat, why present your wingless liberties to the death star when a fighter's too small to target. I understand the plan was an ambush (and it wasn't supposed to be operational), but why bring the whole fleet when they could sit safely in reserve while the squadrons engaged?

1 hour ago, Drasnighta said:

Honestly?

(As someone who once trained as a Military Pilot...)

Because you can only poop in a bag so often before you get tired of not being able to wipe properly.

This is Star Wars, the bags have special little wiper bots for that clean fresh feel........

4 hours ago, JgzMan said:

ISDs are battleship, troop carriers, fighter carriers, planetary assault vessels, patrol vessels, and everything else. The Empire designed a HUGE ship, put everything on it, and it is the one-size-fits-all solution to problems. Any problem too big for one ISD, you send three ISDs.

And while you're right about the fact that Battleships were made obsolete by bombers of various types, Armada is supposed to be a capitol ship game. I'm happy to have squadrons, as they are a huge part of the SW feel, but if they are as effective as all this, why does the Rebellion even bother with cap ships? Their fighters have hyperdrives.

No armada is a combined arms game and has been from the starter set on.

and the rule your force can only be 30% fighters, also when they attack the first death star they did only bring fighters

5 hours ago, pt106 said:

I find your lack of faith in ISD disturbing

ISDs can be used as supercarriers and it is a valid use, however they can (and often are) used in a battleship role and are devastating in that role in the hands of a skilled player.

True very true, I agree with you But they can also be pecked to death by the combo of fighters and other sized ships ,by so so skilled players because combined arms applies more power

it is easier to kill other ships with a nice mix of small mid and large ships with fighters.

19 minutes ago, ouzel said:

No armada is a combined arms game and has been from the starter set on.

But right now the games primary threat is squadrons, it's most effective damage dealers are squadrons, it's most reliable choice is squadrons. It's basically super epic X-Wing...

2 hours ago, Norsehound said:

Weak AA: I think worlds proved that Fighters are in no danger of being rendered obsolete. All I ask is the ability for capital ships to have some response to fighter attacks if we're willing to put in the price for it. I'm not asking for a hard nerf to Yavaris or carriers as a whole if there's some way for big ships to be a better threat to small ships. If only QLTs were black dice, or counted more faces on the die!

Worlds proved that 1 fighter-centered list is overpowered, and it or its brothers were taken 6 times. Fighter lists without Rieekan or Rhymer are balanced right now, not dominant by any means. (28 regionals lists, 7 bottom quarter, 5 in the top 4. That's about as balanced as it can get.)

So, either we nerf Rieekan & Rhymer back to the level that other fighter lists are at, or we accept that Rieekan Aces is the power level that all squads should be at, and buff anti-squadron effects and non-unique squads to compensate. Either one would be a reasonable approach. My preference would be to bring Rieekan down rather than bringing everything else up.

For the AA issues, maybe the new Quad Battery Turrets will bring something usefull to counter all those squadrons!!!

But for 5 points, i'm not expecting something that great