3 hours ago, Gadgetron said:

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?

The answer to your question varies depending on how and how much realism you want to apply to Star Wars space combat. In most cases, the reasons are fairly straightforward, and also answer the question, "Why does the US Navy use supercarriers and their attendant escorts as frontline combatants instead of summoning the Air Force with intercontinental bombers and escorts?" Fundamentally, the larger ships offer superior coordination capabilities, the ability to rearm and refuel, and can add the weight of their own weapons on the target. Logically, the proton torpedo carried by an X-wing has an effectiveness ceiling lower than a proton torpedo fired by the Profundity, and has a smaller magazine to boot. The same applies writ large, and goes double for energy batteries. Executor was crippled by the A-wing strike, but its bridge deflector shields had failed under the combined bombardment of the Rebel capital ships. Whether or not Armada fully represents this combined arms effort (ship fire plus precision bomber strikes) is obviously a matter of contention, but that is as reasonable a conclusion as can be drawn.

As to the combat effectiveness of the Rebel fleet itself, the presence of a fleet in being is a powerful strategic tool to wield, one wielded with skill in the fomer Legends canon. (I have no idea what the current canon says on the subject, and only barely care to find out.) Whether or not capital ships provide more efficient threat does not impinge their ability to apply concentrated threat and concentrated destructive capability. I also point out that in the briefed plan for the attack at Endor, the Rebel commanders believed their cruisers to have sufficient firepower and durability to screen the strike wings against Star Destroyers and swarms of TIE fighters while holding station above the Death Star. Obviously they did not expect either the size of the present Imperial fleet, or an operational superlaser, but they had to know there would be a significant presence guarding such a massive investment of military resources, plus old hag-face himself.

4 hours ago, Baltanok said:

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.

I'm skeptical that a Rieekan nerf will solve the issue of Rebel squadrons being too powerful for Imperial capital ships. After all, Yavaris is still there. Stacked BCCs are still there. Flotillas as activation fodder is still there. Norra is still there. You can probably switch some escorts around and build around Biggs funneling away damage into Gallant Heaven instead of taking a Pelta like Mythics does. These things are not affected by Rieekan changing. I mean, I think that's a good direction to go, but since it doesn't impact other key portions of Mythics/Worlds/whateever list, I'll believe it when I see it.

I also caution against depowering Rhymer. Yes, it's annoying, but it's one of the only tricks the Empire has for attacking capital ships. If Empire is losing Rhymer, I'd like to see Yavaris taken down a peg. Maybe make the title exempt from Fighter Coordination team, since that title completely bypasses the title's one disadvantage. I'd even trade Demolisher for something like that.

I have to wonder if a focused approach to supporting the large base ship could work, I've not tried it but this thread has me thinking can you build a battle ship to survive a rebel fighter assault.

Principles:

1) It will need hull, hull and more hull.

2) it will take damage so maximise self repair

3) large ship defence tokens offer little defence

4) hurting them every time they hurt you is great

5) being able to attack both fighters and fire your main arc is great.

From this:

The ISD for the new world is an ISD 2 ( I want the 2 blue Dice and need defensive upgrades)

1) Motti and re-enforced blast doors giving me an indicative hull of 17

2) agent kalus to up my damage against rieekan aces

4) leading shots so I can reroll my AA attacks

5) quad turrets (with Kalus) to hurt them when they hurt you

6) gunnery teams do I can shoot at ships and fighters

7) support fleet focused on keeping the ISD in the game, could include gozanti to pass a token for engineering 6 per round, gozanti to heal a hull ( activate to remove crit), AAA demo glad Two, dr demo glad two passing two shields.

All in all the ISD can now put 5 dice a round into a rebel ace, via two shots with a reroll for each if it comes up blank. The support groups should allow him to heal 1 hull and 2 shields, with 6 engineering left for 3 shields or 2 hull, the support group could also provide around 6 AAA dice into bombers.

3 hours ago, Norsehound said:

8 hours ago, Baltanok said:

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.

I'm skeptical that a Rieekan nerf will solve the issue of Rebel squadrons being too powerful for Imperial capital ships. After all, Yavaris is still there. Stacked BCCs are still there. Flotillas as activation fodder is still there. Norra is still there. You can probably switch some escorts around and build around Biggs funneling away damage into Gallant Heaven instead of taking a Pelta like Mythics does. These things are not affected by Rieekan changing. I mean, I think that's a good direction to go, but since it doesn't impact other key portions of Mythics/Worlds/whateever list, I'll believe it when I see it.

I also caution against depowering Rhymer. Yes, it's annoying, but it's one of the only tricks the Empire has for attacking capital ships. If Empire is losing Rhymer, I'd like to see Yavaris taken down a peg. Maybe make the title exempt from Fighter Coordination team, since that title completely bypasses the title's one disadvantage. I'd even trade Demolisher for something like that.

I'm going to respond to @Baltanok too, I hope this really makes sense to you, because I really hope we can see eye to eye on something. I frankly love how level headed you are about this. I love how you use the data to determine your impressions. However, I believe you are walking into a trap: You think it is great to balance the some of the most (if not the most) accurate and powerful dice attacks in the game (due to how tokens works and the math behind BCC/Toryn), by nerfing Rieekan so that this archetype can be beaten by a counter strategy. Now, I had a hard time responding to this because it really does seem like a great idea. It seems to hinge on player skill. I think I can explain it now:

Unfortunately, there are two kinds of player skill: Difficulty floor and difficulty ceiling. Adding counterplay that is very complex to pull off increases skill ceiling. However, in any case where THE counterplay isn't appreciably actionable or lesser skilled players are unable to execute such strategy, the actual strength of the overpowered mechanic (squadron damage) remains as a bludgeon tool that requires less difficulty to use than it is to counter the strategy: thus, perceived positive reinforcement of the strength of that gameplay choice. The game will never be perfectly balance or equal, that's utter fantasy. Players will always attempt to find the most effective pieces, that are most reliably strong, and they will use those pieces unless prevented so by external factors: Perception (inability to determine minutae or remember/memorize pertinent information), Physical ability (most pertaining to real-time strategy games, cost (monetary or time to learn a skill, I only play Zerg too much time to learn an entire different race), or scrub-faction-loyalty (I will only play Imperials!). Something becomes humped up as being too strong, however due to meta or possible difficult counters it might become obscured as obviously too powerful, however, the strength still remains, the hump still remains. It warps the game around it, and although it might be dealt with, it simply becomes a defining tenet of the game.

There's a wonderful set of articles by game designer for Magic, Mark Rosewater. One very controversial one about the role of luck in the game of magic. Highly contentious. I wish I could link you, but (I don't remember the name), and if you don't play Magic it would hardly make sense with its examples anyway. However, the core tenet is also, that luck creates the inherent uncertainty that makes the game worth playing for lesser skilled players. It makes it worth playing especially in the case of slightly mismatched skill (as opposed to wholly outmatched). Magic also has different powerful mechanics of different levels of required skill floor so that players can choose a route that is suitable to their understanding of the game (ex. combat mechanics are now more powerful and simpler to understand, as opposed to counterspells). They've done a good job reducing the supremacy of Blue in their game, one factor that was considered meta-warping for decades.

I for one have played numerous variants of the Acehole list. Played. Played against. Tested for months. Rieekan understandably really makes the list shine, however, I cannot see how my percieved impression of the utter efficient damage of BCC, FCT movement allowing Yavaris double taps is not literally the best in game. Even if someone wants to scream at me and say its not the exact BEST in the game, its still definitely near the tip tip top, and definitely much more reliable than getting ships in arcs of large ships and then suffering from "dice luck". Recall also, when people moan about dice luck, its very rarely (not never, this is statistics) BCC squadrons.

The 5 ship rieekan list is literally the natural extension of what you should take with squadrons. It epitomizes everything meta good about this meta right now. 2 ships, 3 flotillas, highest reliable damage. Variability in threat zone (via squadron 360 movement, and moving ships slowly at 1 in a clump). The ability to erase any ships off the table at will within 1.5 turns. The ability to fight opposing squadrons with your own squadrons. Note, and I've seen some people take potshots at me personally for this: if its a Pelta or an Assualt frigate, it doesn't matter a flying fk. People scream at me, there was no Pelta in the finals lists, therefore Blail Blerg, you are wrong and you didn't predict the top of Worlds. It has nothing to do with the Pelta. The 2nd ship is the least important part of this whole deal, it does the least damage in the list, it has no upgrades relevant to its damage output. (Gallant Haven is a natural choice that is really a squadron upgrade, and it simply exists as a substitute for Biggs/Jan/Xwing balls, its not possible to fit both and still retain the other units needed for mass bomber damage).

Squadrons are too difficult to efficiently counter right now. And if you continue to only think in terms of raising the skill ceiling for the game, the game will die. The honestly crappy players like me (I still don't think I'm honestly that crappy. Especially when I go seal clubbing with my squadrons), who like to play other things than squadrons will simply be shoved out of the competitive/living-ness of the game. Squadrons are inherently extremely good damage dealers. That's it. In a battle game, even with objectives, a dead opponent cannot fight back.

I've been thinking long and hard about this: I don't see a reason for "leaving the game" posts. But honestly, if wave 6 or errata doesn't show an address of this issue that's been festering since wave3 BCC, I really have to consider whether its really worth it for me to ever invest any more time into actually playing this game. I will probably be done with this game if nothing happens. I got into it cuz I love the models of the ship ships. Small ships, big ships. I wasn't that peeved about its rules complexity, the weird shortness of the firing vs the movement, the blobby nature of squadron battles. I'll probably honestly stil buy Wave6, and things like the MC75 cuz they're beautiful, but at this point in my life, it might not be worth playing the game anymore. I just, like other gamers/customers, don't have unlimited patience. My allegiance (is to the Republic) is to beautiful physical space ship toys I love to look at. I will be very sad if I can't play the game the models are made from and use the models I like and have paid money for and spent countless hours painting (I've painted my ships, only done superificial squadron painting).

I really urge everyone to consider the magnitude of the problem at hand, and consider the magnitude of suggestions and what they all mean for the game. Its been said before, its just a game, but if life isn't for enjoying beautiful things like family, friends, art, music, and plastic spaceships, I don't know what to make of it then. At this point, its been a reality of the game for at least 3-5 months for us in the West Coast. Very negative experiences. I really don't know if this is beautiful or not anymore.

(If anyone reading this thinks the only thing I've said is "Armada is ded", go choke on a sausage.)

5 hours ago, Norsehound said:

You can probably switch some escorts around and build around Biggs funneling away damage into Gallant Heaven instead of taking a Pelta like Mythics does.

When you say funneling away damage into Gallant Haven, what do you mean, specifically?

(I kid. This is actually sparta.)

Maybe the problem is at the base... field testing. FFG come with a new upgrade or title and they don't seems to think of all the mecanics it will change. Flotillas, BCC, Rhymer, Demo, Rieekan, 1/3 of points in squadron, where all good ideas on paper but in practice... are really, really strong. At 300 points, some of them where ok, but at 500 points, it change their power to something to a new summit.

Because of that, they put new upgrade as counter but it's not always a good solution and changing rule is maybe too hard

That's the dilemma.

1 hour ago, Valca said:

When you say funneling away damage into Gallant Haven, what do you mean, specifically?

Gallant Heaven: Before a friendly squadron at distance 1 suffers damage from an attack, reduce the total damage by 1.

Biggs: Before a friendly squadron with Escort at distance 1 suffers damage during an attack, you may reduce the total damage by 1. If you do, choose a friendly squadron with Escort at distance 1. That squadron suffers 1 damage.

The idea is that you can use Biggs, after a Brace from the defending target or Jan Ors, to move that damage to something under gallant heaven to eliminate the damage.

13 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

Gallant Heaven: Before a friendly squadron at distance 1 suffers damage from an attack, reduce the total damage by 1.

Biggs: Before a friendly squadron with Escort at distance 1 suffers damage during an attack, you may reduce the total damage by 1. If you do, choose a friendly squadron with Escort at distance 1. That squadron suffers 1 damage.

The idea is that you can use Biggs, after a Brace from the defending target or Jan Ors, to move that damage to something under gallant heaven to eliminate the damage.

You can't actually do that, gallant heaven works against damage caused by an attack. The damage passed over by Biggs is not actually damage suffered from an attack, so gallant heaven does not effect it.

33 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

Gallant Heaven: Before a friendly squadron at distance 1 suffers damage from an attack, reduce the total damage by 1.

Biggs: Before a friendly squadron with Escort at distance 1 suffers damage during an attack, you may reduce the total damage by 1. If you do, choose a friendly squadron with Escort at distance 1. That squadron suffers 1 damage.

The idea is that you can use Biggs, after a Brace from the defending target or Jan Ors, to move that damage to something under gallant heaven to eliminate the damage.

This is why I asked. Damage that Biggs redirects isn't damage suffered from an attack, so Gallant Haven can't reduce it. You can Brace + Biggs + Gallant Haven to prevent the target of the attack from taking up to 4 damage (Brace 4 -> 2, Gallant 2 ->1 , redirect 1 with Biggs), but the recipient of that Biggs damage still takes it.

5 hours ago, Jondavies72 said:

The ISD for the new world is an ISD 2 ( I want the 2 blue Dice and need defensive upgrades)

1) Motti and re-enforced blast doors giving me an indicative hull of 17

2) agent kalus to up my damage against rieekan aces

4) leading shots so I can reroll my AA attacks

5) quad turrets (with Kalus) to hurt them when they hurt you

6) gunnery teams do I can shoot at ships and fighters

7) support fleet focused on keeping the ISD in the game, could include gozanti to pass a token for engineering 6 per round, gozanti to heal a hull ( activate to remove crit), AAA demo glad Two, dr demo glad two passing two shields.

This mirrors the thoughts I had while doing my Worlds list. I did a supersurvivable ISD with Motti, RBD and Proj Experts Gladiator and this part worked pretty good (in one game ISD managed to survive close range front arc from ISD1 and a Demo triple tap two rounds later). I decided not to use QLT/Kallus mechanic (I used in before in Wave4 builds) as even if the damage wounds or kills aces, they would still manage to do enough damage to mortally wound that ISD. I feel that QLT mechanic works better if you have a redundant ISD on standby and isn't worth the points in a christmas tree ISD build right now. The problem with ISD-Demo-GSD-Gz-Gz build is that it doesn't have enough points to upgrade ships without going squadronless, and there is not enough survivability in the list to go that route (imho).

3 minutes ago, pt106 said:

This mirrors the thoughts I had while doing my Worlds list. I did a supersurvivable ISD with Motti, RBD and Proj Experts Gladiator and this part worked pretty good (in one game ISD managed to survive close range front arc from ISD1 and a Demo triple tap two rounds later). I decided not to use QLT/Kallus mechanic (I used in before in Wave4 builds) as even if the damage wounds or kills aces, they would still manage to do enough damage to mortally wound that ISD. I feel that QLT mechanic works better if you have a redundant ISD on standby and isn't worth the points in a christmas tree ISD build right now. The problem with ISD-Demo-GSD-Gz-Gz build is that it doesn't have enough points to upgrade ships without going squadronless, and there is not enough survivability in the list to go that route (imho).

Yep, the points to get a usable list seems to be the issue ( I'm don't mind bare bones squadron, but not squadron less) I'm going to try and work up a compromise list for store champs, I will stick it up for comment when I've had a chance to play around with some ideas.

23 minutes ago, Valca said:

This is why I asked. Damage that Biggs redirects isn't damage suffered from an attack, so Gallant Haven can't reduce it. You can Brace + Biggs + Gallant Haven to prevent the target of the attack from taking up to 4 damage (Brace 4 -> 2, Gallant 2 ->1 , redirect 1 with Biggs), but the recipient of that Biggs damage still takes it.

Ah! Good to know. I still think stopping max fighters requires max fighters, but at least that tool is off the table.

Re: QLTs: The card would be good if it had something more than a single blue die. Fighter-counter at least has Swarm with TIE Interceptors to do some re-rolls, and there are ways to improve it. In theory Counter 1 is nice, but I've armed VSDs with it and hit virtually nothing in that game (Maybe 1-2 damage). From those games I'm not sold on QLTs, it's another card that should work but doesn't. Kallus is a good idea as well but the fighters I'd want to destroy quickest are the generics (multiple B-Wings). *shrug*

5 minutes ago, Jondavies72 said:

Yep, the points to get a usable list seems to be the issue ( I'm don't mind bare bones squadron, but not squadron less) I'm going to try and work up a compromise list for store champs, I will stick it up for comment when I've had a chance to play around with some ideas.

I ended up with ISD2-GSD-Raider-Raider-Gz formula without Demolisher. This allows to use Flechettes and to bring around 30 points of squads. I would say that it worked pretty good for me so far.

15 minutes ago, pt106 said:

I ended up with ISD2-GSD-Raider-Raider-Gz formula without Demolisher. This allows to use Flechettes and to bring around 30 points of squads. I would say that it worked pretty good for me so far.

Does the Gladiator suffer very much from not Demolishing?

1 minute ago, Valca said:

Does the Gladiator suffer very much from not Demolishing?

Because demolisher is such a good card, people tend to forget that gladiators are actually superb ships in their own right. I

Just now, Valca said:

Does the Gladiator suffer very much from not Demolishing?

Less than I expected. It just requires a different role and playstyle. Essentially, I delay its activation as much as possible and use it to protect ISD flank from incoming ships. And as its a cheap ship that is likely to be sacrificed to increase the odds of ISd survival, having Demolisher on it is actually counterproductive.

23 minutes ago, pt106 said:

Less than I expected. It just requires a different role and playstyle. Essentially, I delay its activation as much as possible and use it to protect ISD flank from incoming ships. And as its a cheap ship that is likely to be sacrificed to increase the odds of ISd survival, having Demolisher on it is actually counterproductive.

Insidious can be a worthwhile investment in a flanker glad, it's suprising how many times you can get in rear shots when people are trying to line up their primary arcs on the side or rear of your ISD. You just change position slightly from a standard glad/raider flanking position, slightly further forward and out to the side a bit further( which can be handy in allowing your ISD more Space to turn.

15 hours ago, ouzel said:

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

Point the First: Right now, Armada is a game of squadrons killing capitol ships, or squadrons trying to keep squadrons from killing capitol ships. Actualy bringing capital ships seems to be an afterthought. We could probably skip the capitol ships entirely, and just play 400 points of squadrons. Maybe allow certain upgrade cards, just for variety.

Point the Second: The existence of squadrons doesn't make it a "combined arms" game, any more than the existance of cards makes Rebellion a card game.

15 hours ago, ouzel said:

also when they attack the first death star they did only bring fighters

When the first Death Star suddenly appeared in their system, all they had was fighters. If they had had capital ships handy, I'm sure they would have brought some along.

14 hours ago, DOMSWAT911 said:

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

I've got a few ideas that might work.

Option One: let the new Quad Battery Turrets be identical to Quad Laser Turrets, but take a Defensive slot. Rule that all sources of COUNTER stack.

Option Two: errata QLT to include Agent Kalus's power natively. That's a massive upgrade against named squads, but does nothing at all to hurt unnamed squads. This would be a dramatic departure from how the card is originally intended to work, so FFG probably won't do it, but it would be interesting.

Option Three: The new Quasar Fire, IMO, should be a handy platform for flack. I might wind up flying a pair just for the red dice.

9 hours ago, Norsehound said:

I'm skeptical that a Rieekan nerf will solve the issue of Rebel squadrons being too powerful for Imperial capital ships. After all, Yavaris is still there. Stacked BCCs are still there. Flotillas as activation fodder is still there. Norra is still there. You can probably switch some escorts around and build around Biggs funneling away damage into Gallant Heaven instead of taking a Pelta like Mythics does. These things are not affected by Rieekan changing. I mean, I think that's a good direction to go, but since it doesn't impact other key portions of Mythics/Worlds/whateever list, I'll believe it when I see it.

I also caution against depowering Rhymer. Yes, it's annoying, but it's one of the only tricks the Empire has for attacking capital ships. If Empire is losing Rhymer, I'd like to see Yavaris taken down a peg. Maybe make the title exempt from Fighter Coordination team, since that title completely bypasses the title's one disadvantage. I'd even trade Demolisher for something like that.

So norse, you mention all these links in a chain of synergy. Or as a more opportunistic player might look at them, all these different points of failure. I would posit that the reason you see these lists doing so well rieekan is that you cant cut any point in the chain. Without rieekan, you can. You can slam Yavaris with Demo. You can alpha the bombers/intel. There are suddenly valid counterplay options, and its been accomplished with a minimum of adjustment.

Which is not to say Yavaris, or stacking BCC couldn't also use a look. I personally think Yavaris is fine, its things like relay/rieekan that break it, but its a valid lever for adjustment.

I also think rhymer is fine.

Edit: Well. A lot of posts between when I started writing this and when I finished. Will teach me to post at work.

7 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

I'm going to respond to @Baltanok too, I hope this really makes sense to you, because I really hope we can see eye to eye on something. I frankly love how level headed you are about this. I love how you use the data to determine your impressions. However, I believe you are walking into a trap: You think it is great to balance the some of the most (if not the most) accurate and powerful dice attacks in the game (due to how tokens works and the math behind BCC/Toryn), by nerfing Rieekan so that this archetype can be beaten by a counter strategy. Now, I had a hard time responding to this because it really does seem like a great idea. It seems to hinge on player skill. I think I can explain it now:

Unfortunately, there are two kinds of player skill: Difficulty floor and difficulty ceiling. Adding counterplay that is very complex to pull off increases skill ceiling. However, in any case where THE counterplay isn't appreciably actionable or lesser skilled players are unable to execute such strategy, the actual strength of the overpowered mechanic (squadron damage) remains as a bludgeon tool that requires less difficulty to use than it is to counter the strategy: thus, perceived positive reinforcement of the strength of that gameplay choice. The game will never be perfectly balance or equal, that's utter fantasy. Players will always attempt to find the most effective pieces, that are most reliably strong, and they will use those pieces unless prevented so by external factors: Perception (inability to determine minutae or remember/memorize pertinent information), Physical ability (most pertaining to real-time strategy games, cost (monetary or time to learn a skill, I only play Zerg too much time to learn an entire different race), or scrub-faction-loyalty (I will only play Imperials!). Something becomes humped up as being too strong, however due to meta or possible difficult counters it might become obscured as obviously too powerful, however, the strength still remains, the hump still remains. It warps the game around it, and although it might be dealt with, it simply becomes a defining tenet of the game.

There's a wonderful set of articles by game designer for Magic, Mark Rosewater. One very controversial one about the role of luck in the game of magic. Highly contentious. I wish I could link you, but (I don't remember the name), and if you don't play Magic it would hardly make sense with its examples anyway. However, the core tenet is also, that luck creates the inherent uncertainty that makes the game worth playing for lesser skilled players. It makes it worth playing especially in the case of slightly mismatched skill (as opposed to wholly outmatched). Magic also has different powerful mechanics of different levels of required skill floor so that players can choose a route that is suitable to their understanding of the game (ex. combat mechanics are now more powerful and simpler to understand, as opposed to counterspells). They've done a good job reducing the supremacy of Blue in their game, one factor that was considered meta-warping for decades.

I for one have played numerous variants of the Acehole list. Played. Played against. Tested for months. Rieekan understandably really makes the list shine, however, I cannot see how my percieved impression of the utter efficient damage of BCC, FCT movement allowing Yavaris double taps is not literally the best in game. Even if someone wants to scream at me and say its not the exact BEST in the game, its still definitely near the tip tip top, and definitely much more reliable than getting ships in arcs of large ships and then suffering from "dice luck". Recall also, when people moan about dice luck, its very rarely (not never, this is statistics) BCC squadrons.

The 5 ship rieekan list is literally the natural extension of what you should take with squadrons. It epitomizes everything meta good about this meta right now. 2 ships, 3 flotillas, highest reliable damage. Variability in threat zone (via squadron 360 movement, and moving ships slowly at 1 in a clump). The ability to erase any ships off the table at will within 1.5 turns. The ability to fight opposing squadrons with your own squadrons. Note, and I've seen some people take potshots at me personally for this: if its a Pelta or an Assualt frigate, it doesn't matter a flying fk. People scream at me, there was no Pelta in the finals lists, therefore Blail Blerg, you are wrong and you didn't predict the top of Worlds. It has nothing to do with the Pelta. The 2nd ship is the least important part of this whole deal, it does the least damage in the list, it has no upgrades relevant to its damage output. (Gallant Haven is a natural choice that is really a squadron upgrade, and it simply exists as a substitute for Biggs/Jan/Xwing balls, its not possible to fit both and still retain the other units needed for mass bomber damage).

Squadrons are too difficult to efficiently counter right now. And if you continue to only think in terms of raising the skill ceiling for the game, the game will die. The honestly crappy players like me (I still don't think I'm honestly that crappy. Especially when I go seal clubbing with my squadrons), who like to play other things than squadrons will simply be shoved out of the competitive/living-ness of the game. Squadrons are inherently extremely good damage dealers. That's it. In a battle game, even with objectives, a dead opponent cannot fight back.

I've been thinking long and hard about this: I don't see a reason for "leaving the game" posts. But honestly, if wave 6 or errata doesn't show an address of this issue that's been festering since wave3 BCC, I really have to consider whether its really worth it for me to ever invest any more time into actually playing this game. I will probably be done with this game if nothing happens. I got into it cuz I love the models of the ship ships. Small ships, big ships. I wasn't that peeved about its rules complexity, the weird shortness of the firing vs the movement, the blobby nature of squadron battles. I'll probably honestly stil buy Wave6, and things like the MC75 cuz they're beautiful, but at this point in my life, it might not be worth playing the game anymore. I just, like other gamers/customers, don't have unlimited patience. My allegiance (is to the Republic) is to beautiful physical space ship toys I love to look at. I will be very sad if I can't play the game the models are made from and use the models I like and have paid money for and spent countless hours painting (I've painted my ships, only done superificial squadron painting).

I really urge everyone to consider the magnitude of the problem at hand, and consider the magnitude of suggestions and what they all mean for the game. Its been said before, its just a game, but if life isn't for enjoying beautiful things like family, friends, art, music, and plastic spaceships, I don't know what to make of it then. At this point, its been a reality of the game for at least 3-5 months for us in the West Coast. Very negative experiences. I really don't know if this is beautiful or not anymore.

(If anyone reading this thinks the only thing I've said is "Armada is ded", go choke on a sausage.)

I dont know how much wave 6 is going to help squadron wise, given what we know. Quasar/hammerheads might push against flotilla use some. And I hold out hope that there is some antisquad firepower in the upgrade cards. I'd be looking at wave 7/possible incoming errata for more a more significant swing of the proverbial pendulum.

Also sloane will help imp squads v rieekan, but I dont think that addresses your core concerns at all.

10 hours ago, Norsehound said:

I'm skeptical that a Rieekan nerf will solve the issue of Rebel squadrons being too powerful for Imperial capital ships. After all, Yavaris is still there. Stacked BCCs are still there. Flotillas as activation fodder is still there. Norra is still there. You can probably switch some escorts around and build around Biggs funneling away damage into Gallant Heaven instead of taking a Pelta like Mythics does. These things are not affected by Rieekan changing. I mean, I think that's a good direction to go, but since it doesn't impact other key portions of Mythics/Worlds/whateever list, I'll believe it when I see it.

I also caution against depowering Rhymer. Yes, it's annoying, but it's one of the only tricks the Empire has for attacking capital ships. If Empire is losing Rhymer, I'd like to see Yavaris taken down a peg. Maybe make the title exempt from Fighter Coordination team, since that title completely bypasses the title's one disadvantage. I'd even trade Demolisher for something like that.

I would be 100% for depowering Rhymer AND Yavaris.

Rhymer seems to be putting a pretty hard cap on how good Imperial bombers can be from a design perspective. Yavaris seems to be getting away with not doing this for some reason, but is just as much of a design liability. Force Yavaris to exhaust to make A squadron shoot twice (with only one squad doing it you could probably pull the cap on not moving) and cut Rhymer to 1-2 instead of medium.

5 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

I'm going to respond to @Baltanok too, I hope this really makes sense to you, because I really hope we can see eye to eye on something. I frankly love how level headed you are about this. I love how you use the data to determine your impressions. <snip for length>

Thanks, Blail, this was a very detailed & well-thought out post.

regarding luck & various reroll mechanics:

I will run some math, and compare a bomber wing with BCC to MC30's with OE, ISDs with LS, ARQs with DTT, etc. My hope is that the dice reliability upgrades are broadly similar in effectiveness when added to the units that they are most appropriate for.

regarding ship types:

I feel that having different strengths & weaknesses of different ships is a good thing. Stacking one type of ship, whether it's great big Imperial Wedges, or fast, short-ranged, attack boats, means that you are doubling down on the strengths, but also doubling down on the vulnerabilities. You are gambling that you are going to get more out of your advantage than your opponent will out of your weakness. Mixing up your ships should mean that you have a lower strength in one area, but a lower weakness in another. Ideally, that would make mixed lists more accessible to lower skill players, as they should have less of an achilles heel. Bonus points if mixed lists with no more than 1 of each ship are viable, so that a new player can have a reasonably competitive list with fewer model purchases. For example, if MC80/MC30/CR90/Neb/GR75/1 Reb Fighter Pack were a reasonable newbie mixed tournament list, I would be very happy. (Trade either MC80 or MC30 for something else to taste)

regarding Rieekan:

My preferred Rieekan nerf would be errata: Zombie Squads lose Escort & gain Heavy. Zombie Wedge still shoots his massive volley, but doesn't prevent you from shooting Norra. Zombie Shara doesn't pin you in place. Biggs can't throw more damage onto zombie Wedge. But this is pure conjecture, with no data to determine if it would be enough, not enough, or too much.

Regarding Yavaris:

Wave 3-4, Yavaris/Not-Rieekan wasn't unbalanced (3 of 10 top 4 finishes, 3 bottom quarter finishes), while Rieekan/Yavaris was (6 top out of 16, so roughly where Rhymer is in wave 5). Wave 2, Yavaris was pretty balanced (3 top 4, 13 total fleets, 4-ish bottom quarter), results which were fairly comparable to Wave 2 non-yavaris rebels (5 top 4, 20 lists, 5-ish bottom quarter). I don't have data to evaluate the effect of FCT without digging through old lists.

Regarding AA:

Because AA fire hits all targets in an arc, it has a powerful multiplier built in for blue range anti-squad. Red Anti-squad is even more powerfully multiplied, but the QF2 doesn't feel like an existential threat to me. I really don't want to give passive increases to anti-squad fire. Active increases, where the ship gives up something meaningful, are much less objectionable. For example, an upgrade that allowed a CF dial to affect all anti-squad attacks in an arc would be less objectionable than one that added a die to the AA battery. A 2 blue die base flotilla would be pretty scary, since you could reasonably cover a key ship with multiple overlapping fields of fire. But the CF-AA upgrade on GR75's wouldn't bother me as much because you would be giving up a cheap squad command, or a commsnet token to pull it off. Instead, your flotillas would have the sole purpose of antisquad. This CF-AA upgrade would also not get out of hand with QF, since they are going to want to be running squad commands. Also, the CF-AA upgrade would still suffer from obstruction shadows.

Giving up something meaningful is the key phrase in this bit. How much anti-ship damage should a big ship list give up, in order to be able to cut the enemy squadrons down to size? Given that generally squad lists trade X ship hit points to gain 2X squad hit points, then I feel that AA upgrades should follow a similar rule. Should that be by consuming dials & tokens? Taking anti-ship upgrade slots (turbolaser, weapons team, Ordnance)? Taking a defense slot, making your fleet more vulnerable to the other threats, or effectively trading ship hit points for anti-squad damage? Costing enough that you can afford significantly fewer ships (silly example: a 360 point ISD not including admiral, with 6 red AA dice, and the Demo title)? I don't know.

How do the various different ship classes fit into this? Should it be easier to get your AA damage up on small ships or large ships? Does ship role play into this? Subjectively, I'm more supportive of good flak on carriers, as it contributes to the combined arms fleets, where you have a carrier, some fighters, a gunship, and a couple of light ships for activation spam or finishing the wounded. But that doesn't solve the hardship that the "mostly large gunship" players feel, and there are a decent of them. (29 fleets with at least 2 medium+ ships, <90 squad points. Somewhat underperforming (4 top 4, 8 bottom quarter))

Should anti-squad upgrades do things other than damage? Flechette Torpedoes are an example of this. You trade damage for activating the squad. They also take a combat upgrade slot. I may not know how to use them effectively, but they fit my definition of giving up something meaningful. So, subjectively, I like them.

Other places for future non-damage anti-squad upgrades would be having an experimental upgrade that comes with a rebel interdictor that reduces fighter speeds over an area. Or an Imperial Fleet command upgrade. Or a future fleet support upgrade that comes with a non-carrier flotilla.

A very good and insigntful conversation overall. Several points, if I may add

12 minutes ago, Baltanok said:

"mostly large gunship" players feel, and there are a decent of them. (29 fleets with at least 2 medium+ ships, <90 squad points. Somewhat underperforming (4 top 4, 8 bottom quarter))

I would chose a slightly different metric, as Imperial gunship paradigm also includes ISD + support (and unless its a 2ISD fleet it's unlikely to include a medium ship).

14 minutes ago, Baltanok said:

For example, an upgrade that allowed a CF dial to affect all anti-squad attacks in an arc would be less objectionable than one that added a die to the AA battery.

While the example is good, this particular upgrade will never fly unless it couldn't be equipped on a Raider.

Overall, my experience as someone who ran low-sqaudron fleets and heavily invested in ship-based AS solutions for at least 3 waves, Wave2 is was perfectly doable, wave4 was doable, but required a high-skilled play and some luck, Wave5 it's next to impossible to do with a squadronless fleet, possible, but hard to do with a low-sqaudron fleet, however, it opens up a possibility of losing to other fleet archetypes. So, yes - currently there is no good way to competitvely play the game without commiting to max squadrons strategy, and this is not a good sign.

34 minutes ago, pt106 said:

While the example is good, this particular upgrade will never fly unless it couldn't be equipped on a Raider.

Turbolaser slot? The problem being that it's a hard slot to fight over. Maybe it's that new Offensive Retrofit that we're all dreaming about!