12 minutes ago, geek19 said:

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!

21 minutes ago, pt106 said:

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

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).

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.

TL being a hard slot to fight over is why I think AA upgrades should use it. See my earlier comment about forcing meaningful tradeoffs.

No raider: Turbolaser slot, defense, or Support Team. TL would be better, as you'd be giving up some anti-ship damage for the added damage. Defense is interesting, but you could Tua it onto a Raider. At least you couldn't Kallus that raider as well to toss around 4 OE blacks and Flechettes...

Still, doesn't look like there's a good home for it.

Imp Gunship: If you can squeeze 5 activations into an ISD, low squadron (<60 points) is almost competitive, to the degree measurable in the small number of lists that flew it. (1 top 4, 9 total, 2 bottom quarter. Expected results would be 1.9 top 4, 2.7 bottom quarter.) This may be meta-dependent. I can try to split the regionals into "Higher Squadron" and "Lower Squadron" to see how 5 ships with 1 large base fare in the high squad regionals, but there probably won't be enough lists that meet the criteria to look at just imperial or just rebel, so it will include the Ackbar death pickle lists that seemed to work well this wave.

21 minutes ago, Baltanok said:

Imp Gunship: If you can squeeze 5 activations into an ISD, low squadron (<60 points) is almost competitive, to the degree measurable in the small number of lists that flew it. (1 top 4, 9 total, 2 bottom quarter. Expected results would be 1.9 top 4, 2.7 bottom quarter.) This may be meta-dependent. I can try to split the regionals into "Higher Squadron" and "Lower Squadron" to see how 5 ships with 1 large base fare in the high squad regionals, but there probably won't be enough lists that meet the criteria to look at just imperial or just rebel, so it will include the Ackbar death pickle lists that seemed to work well this wave.

Fair point (and I think that death pickle is a good example of a successful Rebel gunship build).

5 activations ISD lists with some squadron cover are not that hard to do. (In one of my list I managed to fit a basic ISD1 battleship into 5 activations list with 100+ points of squadrons).

5 minutes ago, pt106 said:

Fair point (and I think that death pickle is a good example of a successful Rebel gunship build).

5 activations ISD lists with some squadron cover are not that hard to do. (In one of my list I managed to fit a basic ISD1 battleship into 5 activations list with 100+ points of squadrons).

OK, just went through the regionals & split them into above average (93+)/below average squadron metas. (average squads for non-gunship lists across all metas were 92) Interestingly, Gunships were significantly more likely to be imperials in high squad metas. They weren't more or less successful than rebels, but they were generally about 2/3 of the gunship lists. In low-squadron metas, it was 50/50, with a little more imps at the few-ships, and more Rebs at the 5+ ships end.

However, the 2-3 ship lists, almost exclusively Imperial, did not perform well at all. 16 total, 1 top 4, 7 bottom quarter. 14/16 Imp.

11 minutes ago, Baltanok said:

However, the 2-3 ship lists, almost exclusively Imperial, did not perform well at all. 16 total, 1 top 4, 7 bottom quarter. 14/16 Imp.

I'm not surprised at all. Its exclusively Imperial due to the lure of 2ISD build (and a higher cost of adding an activation for Imperials). At I'm not surprised to see it mostly failing as actications matter, especially for gunships. You need to have at least 4 and preferably 5.

9 minutes ago, Baltanok said:

OK, just went through the regionals & split them into above average (93+)/below average squadron metas. (average squads for non-gunship lists across all metas were 92) Interestingly, Gunships were significantly more likely to be imperials in high squad metas. They weren't more or less successful than rebels, but they were generally about 2/3 of the gunship lists. In low-squadron metas, it was 50/50, with a little more imps at the few-ships, and more Rebs at the 5+ ships end.

However, the 2-3 ship lists, almost exclusively Imperial, did not perform well at all. 16 total, 1 top 4, 7 bottom quarter. 14/16 Imp.

So is it safe to say 3 ships is a dead archetype then? I think most have already assumed it was, especially as you can turn 3 ships into 4 with a flotilla relatively easily enough.

Also, unrelatedly, does anyone know where a list of all (not just the winners) the lists run at Worlds this year is? Do we have that? @Snipafist and I have been wondering about specific builds that were brought, and I know I wouldn't mind looking through the data if I had it listed somewhere.

1 minute ago, geek19 said:

So is it safe to say 3 ships is a dead archetype then? I think most have already assumed it was, especially as you can turn 3 ships into 4 with a flotilla relatively easily enough.

Also, unrelatedly, does anyone know where a list of all (not just the winners) the lists run at Worlds this year is? Do we have that? @Snipafist and I have been wondering about specific builds that were brought, and I know I wouldn't mind looking through the data if I had it listed somewhere.

FFG said they would post some info about lists and then, as far as I know...didnt.

Just now, Madaghmire said:

FFG said they would post some info about lists and then, as far as I know...didnt.

Booooooooooo. I want this right now this specific second more than a new article. This will change in roughly 5 minutes when I get distracted by something new and shiny.

3 hours ago, Madaghmire said:

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.

Well, the core of why big ships lose out to fighters is just the nature of fighters offering so many attacks to blow away defense tokens. As, again, capital ships have little in the way of shooting back at squadrons, it means to stop fighters you need to bring your own fighters. Then lists get better when you give more points to fighters and less to targets those fighters destroy.

Big ships are going to be facing this same issue even as far down as generic B-Wings getting activated out of a fighter 3+ carrier. What do I do, throw my two dice AA ship at it for a couple of turns? It won't kill those B-Wings, and I'll be missing shots against their carriers, which are worth more points.

So... knowing how a list works only goes so well. I know Biggs is a lynchpin in defensive lists, so I need to kill him first. But the most effective means to this is taking my own fighters, which does not help big ships become better. It just makes squadrons, in my judgement, even more essential to attain parity between factions. Big ships remain functional only as carriers, not as battleships.

2 hours ago, MasterShake2 said:

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.

Empire's mostly about killing other fighters with a side serving of bombers (Really it's just TIE/Sa, TIE/D, bounty hunters). Rhymer has so contorted the Imperial meta that nobody bothers with the flimsy 3-pointers unless they're aces or you're dedicated to bringing a counter to the Rieekan ace apocalypse list. Intel is what brought down fighter screens, so you can't buy cheap interference for 8 points and fight-back screening for 11. Tools like Yavaris and good AA dice on every rebel except the Y-Wing further drove Imperial players from their TIE/IN TIE/LN to take heftier bombers.

After all, with massed TIE/sa not only are you throwing ultra-cheap black dice that does 2 damage, but you got Rhymer in there to protect that damage to medium range. Without going to an all-aces ball, what other combination is more impressive than that?

I'd be fine spending a concentrate fire command on an option that lets my AA hit better. A gunship's preferred commands are concentrate fire and movement anyway, so something I can use to enable the AA card can also be used on gaining a dice when I'm shooting at a target. I'd buy such a card happily, provided it can be equipped to my Imperial medium-large ships in some way.

With such a card I would hope I can at least contest maximum squadrons without having to bring a dedicated anti-squadron force of my own just to prevent them from ripping my face off when I get into bomber range.

2 minutes ago, geek19 said:

So is it safe to say 3 ships is a dead archetype then? I think most have already assumed it was, especially as you can turn 3 ships into 4 with a flotilla relatively easily enough.

Also, unrelatedly, does anyone know where a list of all (not just the winners) the lists run at Worlds this year is? Do we have that? @Snipafist and I have been wondering about specific builds that were brought, and I know I wouldn't mind looking through the data if I had it listed somewhere.

To my knowledge it does not exist.

Just now, shmitty said:

To my knowledge it does not exist.

I'm gonna try to piece it together, then, see what we can get.

Just now, geek19 said:

I'm gonna try to piece it together, then, see what we can get.

I just need to track down the final 2 fleets again. I lost them in all the forum clutter.

5 minutes ago, geek19 said:

So is it safe to say 3 ships is a dead archetype then? I think most have already assumed it was, especially as you can turn 3 ships into 4 with a flotilla relatively easily enough.

Also, unrelatedly, does anyone know where a list of all (not just the winners) the lists run at Worlds this year is? Do we have that? @Snipafist and I have been wondering about specific builds that were brought, and I know I wouldn't mind looking through the data if I had it listed somewhere.

The flotilla really killed the 2-3 activation fleet. It didn't do too much to the 6+ activation fleets.

1 minute ago, shmitty said:

I just need to track down the final 2 fleets again. I lost them in all the forum clutter.

Oh, i don't want JUST the 2 finalists. I want to see what everyone brought, a la your Regionals project. I have some thoughts of my own (that i'll keep hidden for now!) until I see everything about the lists. I also realize that trying to discuss the state of Armada from one tournament that only X people could attend is ludicrous, but well, i don't have an article yet....

Just now, geek19 said:

Oh, i don't want JUST the 2 finalists. I want to see what everyone brought, a la your Regionals project. I have some thoughts of my own (that i'll keep hidden for now!) until I see everything about the lists. I also realize that trying to discuss the state of Armada from one tournament that only X people could attend is ludicrous, but well, i don't have an article yet....

I'd love to see them all too. I just happen to be working on collecting the Top 2 from all the major tournaments right now.

2 minutes ago, shmitty said:

I'd love to see them all too. I just happen to be working on collecting the Top 2 from all the major tournaments right now.

I spoke with FFG guys during the break and they do not plan to release all lists, however one can write to ffgop to get some statistics that they gathered. The best I have is some (crappy) pictures of all rows mid-round 2 to get a rough estimate of what people were running based on the ships seen on the table.

Well, i got a new post up about it.

Oddly enough a lot of you have more complex or even harsher balance changes than I would have created. I've played the boogeyman lists a few times and I think I can safely say that it wins by a large margin but not a huge margin. Let's say an eyeball 60-65 winrate (considered definitely overpowered to 50).

Rieekan: doesn't affect unnamed nonhero squadrons.

ET: cannot be used if maneuver overlapped another ship.

BCC: unique

FCT: unique

Flotillas cannot carry commanders. (Not counting for tabling seems a bit harsh. But also possible)

This gives plenty of ways to counter play squadrons ramming and so forth.

Flotollas counting as squadrons is really audacious. It would push toward medium ships and alpha strike large ship carriers which would be cool but it seems really overly harsh. I've not tried this out to know if it's actually fun or not.

5 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Oddly enough a lot of you have more complex or even harsher balance changes than I would have created. I've played the boogeyman lists a few times and I think I can safely say that it wins by a large margin but not a huge margin. Let's say an eyeball 60-65 winrate (considered definitely overpowered to 50).

Rieekan: doesn't affect unnamed nonhero squadrons.

ET: cannot be used if maneuver overlapped another ship.

BCC: unique

FCT: unique

Flotillas cannot carry commanders. (Not counting for tabling seems a bit harsh. But also possible)

This gives plenty of ways to counter play squadrons ramming and so forth.

Flotollas counting as squadrons is really audacious. It would push toward medium ships and alpha strike large ship carriers which would be cool but it seems really overly harsh. I've not tried this out to know if it's actually fun or not.

All of these strike me as reasonable. I actually still like flotillas not preventing a tabling, and I dont think FCT's or BCC's need to be unique. I would be fine with just killing the BCC stacking effect. So you could listbuild a redundancy if you want it but you cant fish as effectively. Also would like to see flotillas ineligible to be designated as objective ships, but not super concerned about it.

But if all of this were enacted tomorrow I would be perfectly fine with it.

3 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Rieekan: doesn't affect unnamed nonhero squadrons.

Meaning no Zombie Gold/Dagger squad, right? But Wedge still zombies as normal?

31 minutes ago, shmitty said:

The flotilla really killed the 2-3 activation fleet. It didn't do too much to the 6+ activation fleets.

Good graph that

31 minutes ago, pt106 said:

I'm not surprised at all. Its exclusively Imperial due to the lure of 2ISD build (and a higher cost of adding an activation for Imperials). At I'm not surprised to see it mostly failing as actications matter, especially for gunships. You need to have at least 4 and preferably 5.

Don't forget 2 large base ship lists are very high skill lists, with the need for the player to prevent skilled MSU players from using one of the large base ships as a shield/blocking unit against the other, double ISDs are very prone to this.

4 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Oddly enough a lot of you have more complex or even harsher balance changes than I would have created. I've played the boogeyman lists a few times and I think I can safely say that it wins by a large margin but not a huge margin. Let's say an eyeball 60-65 winrate (considered definitely overpowered to 50).

Rieekan: doesn't affect unnamed nonhero squadrons.

ET: cannot be used if maneuver overlapped another ship.

BCC: unique

FCT: unique

Flotillas cannot carry commanders. (Not counting for tabling seems a bit harsh. But also possible)

This gives plenty of ways to counter play squadrons ramming and so forth.

Flotollas counting as squadrons is really audacious. It would push toward medium ships and alpha strike large ship carriers which would be cool but it seems really overly harsh. I've not tried this out to know if it's actually fun or not.

I would still think it won't be enough as it doesn't deal with a Relay issue as well as Rieekan undead escorts soaking damage (as well as other Rieekan issues with high squadron lists)

4 minutes ago, Johnnyreb said:

Don't forget 2 large base ship lists are very high skill lists, with the need for the player to prevent skilled MSU players from using one of the large base ships as a shield/blocking unit against the other, double ISDs are very prone to this.

And I may be biased here but I think that high skilled players rarely fly 2 large base low activation lists.

5 minutes ago, pt106 said:

And I may be biased here but I think that high skilled players rarely fly 2 large base low activation lists.

LOL, It may be better to say 2 large base ships, were a high skill, high reward list, but have now tipped into the "way to risky for the sane" zone .........DMSU went the same way ?

In my heart I aways wanted to put down two ISDs, but never did and it looks like I never will ( well outside of CC anyway),

Just now, Johnnyreb said:

LOL, It may be better to say 2 large base ships, were a high skill, high reward list, but have now tipped into the "way to risky for the sane" zone .........DMSU went the same way ?

Not really. As long as you have 4+ activations 2ISD list is still pretty viable, but does require skill. (And I flew 2ISD list with 5 activations the whole Wave 2 and Wave 4 with some level of success).