I had initially planned a very long and detailed post regarding the subject of squadrons and the perception thereof. I then chose to scratch that because I already know why I love the squadron game and it is not my intention to persuade anyone to share my opinion. Rather, I wish to gain insight into why some people think that squadrons are too overpowered and need to be nerfed or whatever measures you believe are required to make Armada more about ships and less about squadrons.

Now, I am aware of the recent events (the Rieekan menace) and the discussion that it has spawned. I would prefer if we could try to distance this thread from that whole debacle as there are many opinions on that aspect of Armada. If that topic cannot be entirely avoided then so be it but just be aware that at this point it would feel like bringing a horse back to life just to beat it to death again.

The main focus of this thread is to start a new discussion about the subjective opinion's of Armada players in terms of squadrons. You do not need to dig after statistical evidence to give your opinion on the game but a line of reasoning and arguments for any opinions stated would be highly appreciated.

I'll throw out some themes that I have noticed around here to start some debate and we'll see where it leads. This is by no means an exhaustive account of all the themes that have emerged regarding squadrons and ships, but it is a starting point for a hopefully fruitful discussion.

(i) Squadrons are too impactful because they

(a) can potentially provide more damage than ships,

(b) force the opponent to also play "the squadron game" by allocating points to counter squadrons instead of investing points in more/heavier ships,

(c) benefit from too many synergies at the moment, which makes them snowball compared to ships,

(ii) We already have a game about squadrons (X-Wing) - Armada is a game about capital ships.

From what I can gather some people are very annoyed, to put it mildly, that squadrons are able to destroy ships while ships cannot put much of a fight without employing squadrons of their own. My question then remains: are squadrons not the most influential actors in fleet battles in the Star Wars universe?

We only saw 1 fleet battle in the original trilogy; the fight around the second Death Star. In that fight, we saw only limited contribution from fighters. The obvious was the destruction of the Death Star. An important plot element, but doesn't tell us much about how effective fighters are against capital ships. The only other contribution we saw was the destruction of the Executor's bridge by a kamikaze A-Wing. That scene has been misinterpreted over the years. What happened was that sustained bombardment from rebel capital ships dropped the Executor's shields. The A-Wing just happened to get in at the right time. A turbolaser shot at the bridge would have done the same thing.

Outside of the original trilogy, we saw large fleet combat in the opening scene of Episode III, but I don't recall anything useful coming from that. It appeared to be mostly capital ships trading blows with other capital ships and fighters swarming against each other.

I don't remember anything about Rogue One's engagement except that it was asinine to stack to ISDs right next to each other. You've got turbolasers with ranges measured in miles and your tractor beams clearly have good range. Don't park 100 meters from each other...

When I get annoyed by meta changes like this, it's for a different non-thematic reason. If squadrons are required for play, then you get into a strange predicament. You can take a minimal screen and give up hope of winning the squadron battle. Or you can take a full fighter wing of your own and try to win points that way. Those become your only two options - sacrificial pawns or a bomber wing.

I'm having trouble putting this into words, but it breaks down like this. If you have to take squadrons, you can buy anti-fighter squadrons or anti-ship squadrons. If you buy anti-fighter squadrons, you're relying on your opponent to bring enough fighters for your investment to earn its points back. On the other hand, your opponent will always bring ships, so bringing anti-ship fighters is rarely a problem. This leads to the situation where if you're spending a lot on fighters, you have to bring an anti-ship bomber wing with escorts. It's just the most consistently rewarding investment for those points in an environment where you don't know what you'll be facing.

Want to hear the real fix for squadrons?

Reduce the price to 1/3 of the current value. And reduce the allowed squadrons per fleet to max. 10% of the fleet (means 40 points). This give more room (94 points) for ships without reducing the squadrons. On the other hand everyone will add the 40 points they can, just because they are to good for the price. But if all have it, you have a true squadron fight (anti ship, and squadron).

Imo this would be the easiest and best change .
A 134 points (new 40 points) Rhymer ball is not this dangerous anymore, when the opponent has the same value on squadrons to counter it. This will reduce the danger of Rieekan, of Rhymer, of Sloane. It will balance out the squadron fight. And on the plus side add more ships to the board.

And yes, squadrons will be even MORE overpowered this way. But maybe some wake up and see that they are this good. And finally add them to the fleet. Instead of saying how oeverpowered they are, but playing without them on the other hand (not directed to the OP!).
YES. Squadrons are good. I always said and will always say: Only squadrons can beat real squadrons. And everyone has the same right to add the 134 points, and should add at least always 100 points (IMO!).

But i am a squadro-holic. I love them, and can use them, and i can abuse them. . Squadrons are in my view a part of the capital ship battle. It would be boring without them, and to dull.

I see the Squadron game as the "wild card" element that keeps the game challenging. Without them, the game would just seem one dimensional. There are so many more squadron options than ship options. Yes the ships can be modified, but they retain all the strengths and weaknesses of the original. The diversity of squadron threats is what keeps your opponents guessing. That's why there isn't any one counter to those Rieekan Aceholes lists. It is never the same list with the same plan. Squadrons make Armada so much more complex of a game, and that is a good thing in my mind.

28 minutes ago, Tokra said:

Want to hear the real fix for squadrons?

Reduce the price to 1/3 of the current value. And reduce the allowed squadrons per fleet to max. 10% of the fleet (means 40 points). This give more room (94 points) for ships without reducing the squadrons. On the other hand everyone will add the 40 points they can, just because they are to good for the price. But if all have it, you have a true squadron fight (anti ship, and squadron).

Imo this would be the easiest and best change .
A 134 points (new 40 points) Rhymer ball is not this dangerous anymore, when the opponent has the same value on squadrons to counter it. This will reduce the danger of Rieekan, of Rhymer, of Sloane. It will balance out the squadron fight. And on the plus side add more ships to the board.

And yes, squadrons will be even MORE overpowered this way. But maybe some wake up and see that they are this good. And finally add them to the fleet. Instead of saying how oeverpowered they are, but playing without them on the other hand (not directed to the OP!).
YES. Squadrons are good. I always said and will always say: Only squadrons can beat real squadrons. And everyone has the same right to add the 134 points, and should add at least always 100 points (IMO!).

But i am a squadro-holic. I love them, and can use them, and i can abuse them. . Squadrons are in my view a part of the capital ship battle. It would be boring without them, and to dull.

I dunno if that change is the easiest, but I think I like it.

Feel the same way about squadrons as a gameplay element.

Honestly I don't think squadrons are a huge problem just need a few anti squadron upgrades closer to flechette torpedoes to make things a bit more balanced.

If there was a medium and large ship only anti-squadron upgrade similar to bomber, that would do a lot as well, most big ships only get 1-2 black or blue dice. Missing 50% of the time on blue or 25% of the time on one black die, makes it hard to fight squadrons with big ships.

3 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

I dunno if that change is the easiest, but I think I like it.

Feel the same way about squadrons as a gameplay element.

I mean with the easiest, that with this change, every will be on the same level.

Currently you still can win without squadrons, or with a 32 point squadron list. This is what makes it this hard. No squadrons against full anti ship squadrons, a good win chance for the squadrons.
Just because some find them not strong enough, and not using them, will lead them to the point where they get ripped by squadrons. Not taking enough anti squadron these days is dangerous. It became more extreme in the last half year (mainly with wave 5 and CC). On the last worlds, there have been less squadron list, and the average squadron points were lower. This went up. And player who stay with the "no squadron" lists struggle more and more against squadron lists, that are focused on anti ships (Rieekan with B-Wings, Norra, Tie Bombers).

Currently they are in an hard balance. Squadrons are stronger, but not so much that you "HAVE" to take a full list. You still can win without. But it will become more and more rare (you will see it).

So eighter you nerf them into ground that no one will use them anymore, or you make them a "must have", but reduce the impact by lowering the cost. This is my view to it.
Right now we are on the edge that squadrons are really strong, but not overpowered. But as some wrote already, they give way more variance into the game. If no one would play them at all, or everyone has full 134 points, it would make the lists more predicable and would make the game more boring.

First of all, I have to make this statement, I love squadron! Don't get abuse by what I will say next to throw me that I'm saying this because I don't like them. I do care alot about my X-Wing or my Tie-Interceptor (each of them is paint with different colours for have is own identity) but the game is called Armada because we are looking for capital ship.

For now, I think the place that squadrons are taking in this particular game is too high. I can not be sure of this, but I think at the genesis, the conceptor though that it will be nice to have a game center on heavy ship instead of only figther as X-Wing was. Look at the core set, they put some squadron in the box as supplement for the ship, not as center piece. It's right to say that the game was made whit them (squadron) bot not for them and now I think the focus is more center this way. And I'm missing that time when we where building our list whit capital ship in mind before squadrons. When taking 2 or 3 squadrons was a strategy because you decide to bring more ship to the fight.

You could say, the game is in evolution and I have to adapt myself. You are right. But I would like to be able again to decide to be more capital ship centralize as a viable strategy. For me the 1/3 allowed points for squadron is not the problem, it's more a efficiency problem. Capital ship are really really bad against squadron. For now, your only chance is to bring a strong squadron force too. So we are forced to go with this strategy. And this is sad in my point of view.

The solution :

-Good AA upgrades!!! Not something that will burn every squadron around but that could threatened them a little bit more than now. Point Defense Reroute, Quad Laser Turrets and Cluster Bombs failed misirably in this game. Even the Raider who was built for AA is not enough.

-Or we could count crits as hit. I know the feel of the majority about this idea. This is blasphem!!! But think about it a little more. With a VSD or any ship with a blue die, you still have to take 5 turn to get rid of a X-Wing. I see nothing too powerfull there. When I'm playing Imps, I do know that my Tie are easy to burts in flame (only 3 HP) by crossing AA, so I fly them with this in mind. Counting crits could be that wonderfull solution and it won't change any upgrade card (only those who are not working anyway)

45 minutes ago, Tokra said:

Want to hear the real fix for squadrons?

Reduce the price to 1/3 of the current value. And reduce the allowed squadrons per fleet to max. 10% of the fleet (means 40 points). This give more room (94 points) for ships without reducing the squadrons. On the other hand everyone will add the 40 points they can, just because they are to good for the price. But if all have it, you have a true squadron fight (anti ship, and squadron).

Imo this would be the easiest and best change .
A 134 points (new 40 points) Rhymer ball is not this dangerous anymore, when the opponent has the same value on squadrons to counter it. This will reduce the danger of Rieekan, of Rhymer, of Sloane. It will balance out the squadron fight. And on the plus side add more ships to the board.

That's pretty much the same as saying that a fleet can have up to 400 points for ships+upgrades, plus up to 134 points for squadrons.

Which isn't necessarily bad, but it makes full-squadron builds effectively mandatory.

In contrast, I (and seemingly others) believe that the game would be more interesting if high-squadron, low-squadron and no-squadron build choices could all coexist in the same meta and be reasonably viable/competitive. This used to be the case, but it no longer appears so - certainly judging from recent tournament results.

2 minutes ago, DiabloAzul said:

That's pretty much the same as saying that a fleet can have up to 400 points for ships+upgrades, plus up to 134 points for squadrons.

Which isn't necessarily bad, but it makes full-squadron builds effectively mandatory.

In contrast, I (and seemingly others) believe that the game would be more interesting if high-squadron, low-squadron and no-squadron build choices could all coexist in the same meta and be reasonably viable/competitive. This used to be the case, but it no longer appears so - certainly judging from recent tournament results.

Yes. But 40 points does sound not as bad as 134 points :). And for this 40 points you get way more power. Basically you have to use the 40 points in squadrons. Or you will lose every game.
It is a bit extrem, but could work.
But as i said in the past post, it will make the game as well more boring when everyone know that the opponent will have 134 points (or in this case 40) in squadrons.

3 minutes ago, Tokra said:

Yes. But 40 points does sound not as bad as 134 points :). And for this 40 points you get way more power. Basically you have to use the 40 points in squadrons. Or you will lose every game.

Like I said, that's effectively saying "it doesn't matter if it's OP if everybody does it."

At that point you might as well then make Demolisher and Yavaris available for every ship.

Let people set the caps for squadrons & ships separately?

Since there are clearly different tastes.

What if they just made the crit symbol from ships count against squadrons? I feel like this would even out the ship-to-squadron damage to better reflect the squadron-to-ship damage.

Or at the very least, changed "Point Defense Reroute" to "crits count as damage against fighters" and have it be all ranges. (helloooo quasar)

5 minutes ago, Alzer said:

What if they just made the crit symbol from ships count against squadrons? I feel like this would even out the ship-to-squadron damage to better reflect the squadron-to-ship damage.

That's effectively what the PDR upgrade does, for blue dice. No one takes it. It would make the Raider more effective, but they're already pretty good against squadrons.

10 minutes ago, Valca said:

That's effectively what the PDR upgrade does, for blue dice. No one takes it. It would make the Raider more effective, but they're already pretty good against squadrons.

The problem is it's not even that for the blue dice. You've got a 25% chance of rolling a crit against a squadron and then a 50% chance after that of the reroll becoming a hit. So the PDR adds (.25*.5) 12.5% to the 50% chance of doing a damage to your attack, which for single-blue-die ships is .125 extra average damage (so from .5 to .625). That's pretty bad. If it just let crits count as hits, it would add +25% chance of doing damage or .25 to single-die ships (up to .75), which would be much better.

Edit: That's also not even getting into the PDR restriction of only working when used against squadrons at close range. It's so amazingly bad!

I would absolutely be down for an offensive retrofit upgrade that let crits count as hits against squadrons. If it was costed effectively (FFG seems to overprice its hot garbage quality anti-squadron upgrades so I'm skeptical of the cost on an actually decent one), it would be a solid upgrade on Raiders and ISDs at the very least on the Imperial side of things.

1 minute ago, Snipafist said:

The problem is it's not even that for the blue dice. You've got a 25% chance of rolling a crit against a squadron and then a 50% chance after that of the reroll becoming a hit. So the PDR adds (.25*.5) 12.5% to the 50% chance of doing a damage to your attack, which for single-blue-die ships is .125 extra average damage (so from .5 to .625). That's pretty bad. If it just let crits count as hits, it would add +25% chance of doing damage or .25 to single-die ships (up to .75), which would be much better.

I would absolutely be down for an offensive retrofit upgrade that let crits count as hits against squadrons. If it was costed effectively (FFG seems to overprice its hot garbage quality anti-squadron upgrades so I'm skeptical of the cost on an actually decent one), it would be a solid upgrade on Raiders and ISDs at the very least on the Imperial side of things.

Derp, you're right. I was applying the logic for Target Locks vs Focus tokens without adjusting for the fact that you can't reroll the accuracies.

1 minute ago, Snipafist said:

(FFG seems to overprice its hot garbage quality anti-squadron upgrades so I'm skeptical of the cost on an actually decent one),

Hey Flechettes are only three points! Its just that theres only s single ship in the game that can really use them.

PDR gives you rerolls on your crit symbols against squadrons and only at close range. There is a huge difference between the symbol giving a reroll, and the symbol doing damage.

15 minutes ago, Valca said:

That's effectively what the PDR upgrade does, for blue dice. No one takes it. It would make the Raider more effective, but they're already pretty good against squadrons.

EDIT Snipaninja got there first...

Even better an upgrade that has crits add two damage

6 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

Hey Flechettes are only three points! Its just that theres only s single ship in the game that can really use them.

Good catch. Flechettes may be evidence of FFG wising up on that one, but there's also the opportunity cost of not using another ordnance upgrade to consider (which is going to cause me heartache once External Racks shows up). But you're right, maybe that's evidence that FFG has learned that we're sick of overpriced garbage anti-squadron offensive retrofits.

It's something of a sore point for me because presently the offensive retrofit slot provides options for carriers (Expanded Hangar Bays, Boosted Comms, maybe even Rapid Launch Bays) and otherwise offers you a selection of niche garbage. The defensive retrofit slot, especially since Reinforced Blast Doors showed up and offered some help for cheaper ships, is hotly contested and much more all-around useful. It seems that wave 6 may be amending that, but I don't want to get my hopes up.

sorry for all the typos, mobile + auto correct.

Just one thought: Lots of rebel squadrons are multifunctional, and its quite rewarding, no matter what, They are a Good investment thanks to the lots of bombers. On the other hand, imps have more specialised squads. Interceptors, Ties, bomber, etc. Take one, youll be Good for One thing, Take the other, youll be Good for the other thing. If you Take a mix... You End up meh...

I would suggest introducing a keyword similarly to the bomber: The specific squadron is specialised in taking out squadrons should have it, allowing you to count crits as damage. Ofc you can argue this, you can roll 6 Blue with regular interceptors, there is option for High damage output... But, how many Times did you see Such a composition? I didnt see that ever at tourneys.

Id give this keyword to roughly the same squads as rebs have bomber, so the number of bombers+squads with the New trait would be roughly the same Both sides.

Also... I Think we can agree on rebs having the upper hand in the squad game atm, this rule would be able to balance It a bit in imps favor.

For me, as one of the very loud and probably annoying voices against squadron play, it's a mixture of scale, detail, and incorporation of named characters.

1.) Scale.

What is a squadron? How many fighters are in a squadron? Is it 3 as shown on the stands? Does it match the number of hull points each unit has? If it does how do we account for single unit squadrons like the YT 1300 of Lambda shuttle? Without a clear definition of scale, it's very difficult to determine damage output.... and survivablity. Could 5 x wings create a scale 1-2 points of damage on an ISD, yes, but is that how they're scaling these? Which leads to point two

2.) Detail

I've said before I believe squadron mechanics were half baked. If you're going to make squadrons strong enough to vaporize an Imperial class they should at least give full attention to detail. Why don't squadrons lose combat power as they lose health? Why is there no weak spot or firing arc on squadrons? Every time we see bombers run past fighters in the movies, books, or games they get lit up very quickly, the trench run is a great example. If your squadron wants to target a ship it should expose a weakness, if it wants to focus half on the ship half on squad defense, then the firepower should be cut. Squadrons are not too powerful for the lore, or even for the scale, but because of a lack of definition in both, the inherent hard counter to this type of unit is eliminated and creates a small but powerful gap in gameplay.

3.) Aces

I've said before that it makes zero sense to be able to take as many aces as we can.... How many battles did each of these characters participate in? If you have 7-8 named people in your fleet it should be a movie.... because the vast majority of the war was nameless redshirt grunts who died to accomplish things.... Think about how many tie fighters the empire had.... then think about how we only ever see about 5 or 6 different names on the field. By not putting a control over Aces, they've all but eliminated the generic fighter.... why take 50 points in generic ties when 30 points in aces will last just as long and do more?




I've said it before, and I'll say it again. FFG dropped the ball on squadron play. It's not detailed enough to be properly balanced or make any thematic sense, but too detailed and powerful to be ignored. They should either have made them a token system as to not absorb 1/3rd of gameplay or made them detailed enough that natural weaknesses exist within the units themselves.

1 hour ago, buckero0 said:

If there was a medium and large ship only anti-squadron upgrade similar to bomber, that would do a lot as well, most big ships only get 1-2 black or blue dice. Missing 50% of the time on blue or 25% of the time on one black die, makes it hard to fight squadrons with big ships.

How quickly we forget Cluster Bombs exist.

So, to go back to the original topic.
As far as @Tokra idea is concerned I would respectfully but strongly disagree. The problem with "free squadrons for everyone" approach is that not everyone enjoys a full squadron game.

I think (and this is my personal opinion) that the game was not designed to handle the presence of 16+ squadrons on the table with complex range 1 interactions between different squadrons. Any squadron movement in this situation becomes a complex and precise task that I personally don't enjoy (as it becomes strategically important to exercise precise movements while not physically bumping any other squadrons during movement or range checks). I designed and played squadron-heavy fleets (both on Vassal and on a table) and I can win with them, but sometimes it's not fun for me and it's not fun for my opponent as well. At Worlds I used a squadron heavy fleet in a team tourney and while we won both games, both were against squadron heavy fleets, both went to time around round 3, and by the time the second game ended I was just glad it was over and didn't care about result. For me it wasn't fun.

In my mind squadrons are an important point of Armada and should continue to be an important point, however they shouldn't be the only point and currently it's not the case. Somewhere on the forums I read the formula that I liked: Ideally Armada should be 2/3s about ships and 1/3 about squadrons. In a balanced game both full squadron and low/mid squadron (40-60 points CAP) fleets should be equally viable with low squadron approach being penalized by some enemy squadrons executing bombing runs late in the game after overpowering CAP. No squadrons should be a high risk approach that can easily lose big, but still have some fighting chance versus average squadron ball (however this one is a personal opinion and I'm obviously biased here). In the current stage of the game, no squadron fleets are not viable and 'kill the carriers' strategy is effectively dead as it's near impossible to table enemy fleet due to flotillas and is nearly impossible to disrupt squadron command by forcing the carrier to be out of range due to relay. Therefore the only way to deal with heavy squadrons is to bring your own heavy squadron ball. This limits fleet building and strategy choices significantly and makes the game less interesting.