57 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Not to disparage your skill (which you have in spades beyond me - based on my albeit distant observations) - but one key difference is the Title - or rather, the intention of using the title...

Did you specfically practice keeping a tight formation, or were you able to nav all over the place? because I feel that's a key difference... (Because I've ran the full Cracken Fleet in CC as well, and I certainly had no intention of keeping things that tight, so I had no problems...)

Keeping them in formation? METT-TC as we like to say in the Army. Sometimes I fly a bit tight (close-medium range of each other); other times it's fairly loose, with uncoordinated individuals seeking a coordinated goal (like breaking up to meet behind the enemy for a little fun). ::shrug::

It would take a slight readjustment to keep the title range in mind at all times, but only a slight one. I've been picturing them in packs of 3 or 4, as beyond that and you won't really be able to arc dodge much. But the ability to spread out damage to three other ships can be huge. I've been thinking either Cracken or Madine for these little guys. I think Cracken or Rieekan makes the most sense for the TFA ability (Zombie Biggs in a capital ship!).

As for my skill, well, I'm afraid flying small ships really fast is about all I can boast of in this game. I don't tend to win in the competitive scene. Think I took second in a tourney twice (Wave II pre-release and some store championship).

1 hour ago, Ginkapo said:

Every single fleet is a counter. How are the hammerheads going to deal damage?

My thougts exactly. Without red and black reroll thuse ships are at abor 2-2.5 damage per round. At close range. All of them. And not all of tem will be able to fire due Antilles.

While it seems like a formidable fleet it lacks firepower big time. And once you get behind them they are toast.

19 minutes ago, Norell said:

My thougts exactly. Without red and black reroll thuse ships are at abor 2-2.5 damage per round. At close range. All of them. And not all of tem will be able to fire due Antilles.

While it seems like a formidable fleet it lacks firepower big time. And once you get behind them they are toast.

Antilles is the protector. You;re thinking of Task Force Organa.

1 hour ago, Ginkapo said:

Every single fleet is a counter. How are the hammerheads going to deal damage?

4 minutes ago, Norell said:

My thougts exactly. Without red and black reroll thuse ships are at abor 2-2.5 damage per round. At close range. All of them. And not all of tem will be able to fire due Antilles.

While it seems like a formidable fleet it lacks firepower big time. And once you get behind them they are toast.

The sides are already really weak from The Hammerhead (one Black die). But i guess the damage can happen via ramming. They are no Flotilla. But without speed 4 and without Engine Techs, it will be really hard to get them in position.

If 7 CR90 ramvettes with Rieekan had fits with large ships and position, 9 slower hammer heads I don't feel will be an issue.

if you are looking for a tactic to use not just "take this" advice if it looks like you opponent is wanting to ram you to death and you are flying slow ships put a ship in front of your fleet that is cheap use it to protect your heavy hitter(s). they will have to go through it first and you should be able to drop a few before the become a problem. backed up with Squadrons you should win it especially is you pick there Blue Objective which most likely be Solar Corona or Superior Positions. Gunnery Teams is a must. If you like to fly fast then you should not have any real trouble these ships can only go speed 3 so out flanking them wont be hard they don't really turn as fast as a Corvette. but again even when moving fast try and keep the ship you want them to bump in front of you fleet

the thing is with this list is it will pop up from time to time you can beat it but it wont be a big win unless you have a objective in you favour its just going to become one of those unlucky draws you get.

of course there is a way to fix the problem permanently

9 hours ago, Destraa said:

You can using two different ISDs. One to lay the double front arc to lay into the formation, the other to lay reroll fire. All you need is a comms net gozanti feeding CF tokens to the GT ISD.

I run a pair of OE/XI7 ISD1s regularly, if anyone tells you it isn't competitive, they clearly don't know how to properly command and support them. Ask @Darth Lupine what I can do with them sometime.

I'll attest to this. ^^^^

And this s HH thing is bloody sick. Hmm.....and saying it's too much money won't work, you know someone will get this. Ugh.

I don't really see this fleet being terrible to face. Their speed 3 yaw is awful compared to a CR90. And it doesn't have ET. Rhymer let's you kill them at medium which avoids their AA dice, but TFA will be able to negate some of that damage.

The real difference between this and CR90Bs is the speed, ET, 5 dice per attack at medium, and RBD for the heals. HH don't have anything on CR90s. I think if you dropped one and put ER on the other 8, you would have a greater threat. But I actually think Madine would be a better commander than Rieekan. Navigating is often times the best way to avoid taking damage.

Opening Salvo, Jamming Barrier, and Solar Corona or Superior Positions are probably the objectives to pick. Nav Hazards or Salvage Run would be good to since there are a lot of obstacles which can grant obstruction to help keep you alive longer. And Nav Hazards is great against squads since you can cause obstruction which drops most bombers to 0 dice.

how is this better than ET90B swarm? also, ET90B swarm isn't that awesome to begin with.

42 minutes ago, miedomeda said:

how is this better than ET90B swarm? also, ET90B swarm isn't that awesome to begin with.

It's not. The Hammerhead is way more avoidable than the ET CR90B rammers, and deals ram damage at half the rate. I'm not worried about this fleet at all.

59 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

I don't really see this fleet being terrible to face. Their speed 3 yaw is awful compared to a CR90. And it doesn't have ET. Rhymer let's you kill them at medium which avoids their AA dice, but TFA will be able to negate some of that damage.

The real difference between this and CR90Bs is the speed, ET, 5 dice per attack at medium, and RBD for the heals. HH don't have anything on CR90s. I think if you dropped one and put ER on the other 8, you would have a greater threat. But I actually think Madine would be a better commander than Rieekan. Navigating is often times the best way to avoid taking damage.

Opening Salvo, Jamming Barrier, and Solar Corona or Superior Positions are probably the objectives to pick. Nav Hazards or Salvage Run would be good to since there are a lot of obstacles which can grant obstruction to help keep you alive longer. And Nav Hazards is great against squads since you can cause obstruction which drops most bombers to 0 dice.

This.

7 hours ago, Jukey said:

I think 3 raiders and two gozantis and a heavy Rhymer ball would give it a run for its money. Or an interdictor with a g8 to make them all run into each other

You only get to tap one HH with G-8, two with Interdictor . I'd just throw a pair of I-2s with GT, LS, and RBD at them. Maybe Vader, probably Motti. These things are light cruisers optimistically, destroyers if pessimistic. They will melt before battleships. I'm confident in my ability to trade those ISDs up in points, nine TFA and hilarious activation disadvantage or not.

Agreed with everyone that cost will limit the number of times you see this fleet, without ET it's not as super-rammy as Rieekan ETCR90s, and there'll be coordination issues.

For people pointing out the lack of firepower though, it's sort of like a big group of bombers you can't engage- I've used swarm tactics to present enemies with too many ships to shoot at before, and while their front arcs aren't great they are good enough when coupled with ramming damage.

Local metas aside (as though local metas could ever be put aside, they're like 90% of the conversation on here), the sheer amount of flak from this many ships could be dangerous to a rhymer ball or heavy squadron complement as well. And the rammers are very well suited to dealing with carriers, if not with flots.

50 minutes ago, Duk3 said:

Local metas aside (as though local metas could ever be put aside, they're like 90% of the conversation on here), the sheer amount of flak from this many ships could be dangerous to a rhymer ball or heavy squadron complement as well. And the rammers are very well suited to dealing with carriers, if not with flots.

This.

I will say I think 7 TFA HH's with a Pelta and ASTM would be a great thing. Pass out all the damage, then heal most of it, maneuver the last target to the rear so a fresh one is in front, repeat. Yeah, you're only averaging 7.5-10 damage/turn (assuming numbers you can get in to shoot), but over several turns that can add up pretty hard, especially against small ships. Pelta would be a mite vulnerable, so you'd have to be careful there.

I know if I was flying 9 HHs the fleet I wouldn't want to see on the other end of a table is...actually a LOT of stuff. Anything Min/Max in this game tends to have a hard counter and this one has several.

An ISD 1 with GT and a Rhymerball in the same fleet + other stuff to taste would be a nightmare to this fleet as the rhymerball threat range and mobility makes flanking the ISD Safely much much harder, anything fast and maneuverable that is difficult to pin down and ram would be a nightmare (you might get the odd ram off but you would struggle to do much damage without smashing into yourself and by the time you get your one ram off that MC30 or his buddy is behind you and having a wonderful time!

Honestly I am zero percent worried about this, it might be a fun list to fly but I seriously doubt it will be competitive, and if it is, it won't be meta defining.

I currently have 3 HH packs on order but 2 extra down the road are not off the table. Yes Mad, I am one of "those" people. I will likely buy this just to try it because why not?

1 hour ago, Duk3 said:

the sheer amount of flak from this many ships could be dangerous to a rhymer ball or heavy squadron complement as well.

At black die range, not really, no. I loves me some Raiders but getting an enemy squadron in two Raiders' overlapping flak fields is almost always due to carelessness by my opponent. Raiders are big fans of having friendly fighters around to assist with engaging and weakening enemy squadrons to get their black flak working and making a meaningful difference. The 9 Hammerhead fleet has no fighters to assist in that way and the Hammerheads themselves have flak that's half as good as a Raider's and by leaving off Ordnance Experts it's again less reliable.

In short, smart bomber play against this kind of fleet leaves the squadrons susceptible to flak from one Hammerhead at a time and that flak is not particularly impressive. Against Rhymer, it's utterly insufficient.

Quote

And the rammers are very well suited to dealing with carriers, if not with flots.

If the carriers head towards the Hammerheads (like a VSD, let's say), then that's definitely possible. If they head away from them moving perpendicularly (like an Assault Frigate), then no. Flotillas are just fine running away from trouble against that kind of fleet and if they're using Boosted Comms or Relay, that's quite doable without sacrificing efficacy. In the case of something like an Assault Frigate or HMC80, perpendicular movement paired with broadside attacks is going to be a serious problem because the Assault Frigate or HMC80 (with Engine Techs) can equal the speed of your Hammerheads and so getting in front of them is going to be tough; other fast fleets can handle it with a Gladiator+Engine Techs or Raider or CR90 or MC30.

In short, I feel like just spamming a ton of Hammerheads isn't a good fleet. It has serious problems. As an addition to a more well-balanced fleet, a lot of these problems vanish or at least diminish because you've got a better toolbox to handle them.

9 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

you've got a better toolbox to handle them.

But you have 9 hammers. Just keep beating until you win. You can hammer nails, screws, drill bits, screw drivers, another hammer, and really anything you can imagine. Just don't stop.

11 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

In short, I feel like just spamming a ton of Hammerheads isn't a good fleet. It has serious problems. As an addition to a more well-balanced fleet, a lot of these problems vanish or at least diminish because you've got a better toolbox to handle them.

I heartily second this. I'm not worried about 9 HHs, I'm worried about 4 with disposable racks and balanced support

54 minutes ago, Hastatior said:

I know if I was flying 9 HHs the fleet I wouldn't want to see on the other end of a table is...actually a LOT of stuff. Anything Min/Max in this game tends to have a hard counter and this one has several.

An ISD 1 with GT and a Rhymerball in the same fleet + other stuff to taste would be a nightmare to this fleet as the rhymerball threat range and mobility makes flanking the ISD Safely much much harder, anything fast and maneuverable that is difficult to pin down and ram would be a nightmare (you might get the odd ram off but you would struggle to do much damage without smashing into yourself and by the time you get your one ram off that MC30 or his buddy is behind you and having a wonderful time!

Honestly I am zero percent worried about this, it might be a fun list to fly but I seriously doubt it will be competitive, and if it is, it won't be meta defining.

I currently have 3 HH packs on order but 2 extra down the road are not off the table. Yes Mad, I am one of "those" people. I will likely buy this just to try it because why not?

Hey ballers gonna ball. Don't hate the playa.

20 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

Hey ballers gonna ball. Don't hate the playa.

Hate the (activation) game.

16 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Hate the (activation) game.

Please don't, I don't need yet another thread about how activations are ruining Armada.

3 minutes ago, geek19 said:

Please don't, I don't need yet another thread about how activations are ruining Armada.

1000 likes!

Is it just me. Or are MC30/Glad based lists going to love seeing HH swarms on the board? Same with VICi bomber lists.

7 minutes ago, Alzer said:

Is it just me. Or are MC30/Glad based lists going to love seeing HH swarms on the board? Same with VICi bomber lists.

ACMs will love hammerheads

@Admiral Theia , you and i think alike. I was discussing with @Darth Lupine very much the same thing. 3-4 Antilles Hammerheads with racks and OEs, a Pelta with Shields to Maximum, a GR-75 transport with comms net to feed engineering tokens to the Pelta, and fill to taste from there. Fly the HHs in a diamond formation so they can break off into pairs after unloading their payload (and theoretically annihilating their target) so as to not present a favorable return shot if it somehow survives. STM lets you regenerate some of the combat damage to the shields every turn, making the HHs extremely difficult to swat if you don't one-shot them. Pair it with Dodonna for maximum lulz, or with Mon Mothma to keep them alive being able to use that evade token in-close.

A Hammerhead wolf pack with solid support I see being a significant threat, unlike a massed Hammerhead swarm. You simply can't efficiently keep enough of them at range 1-3 to stop an ISD front arc from exploding one, or even two if it has gunnery team, if the ISD roll is substantial enough. A roll of 11 damage is enough to kill a Hammerhead with three others at range 1-3, and it's unlikely you'll be given that opportunity to amass enough meat shields before one or two have been shot down.

Have to agree with Destraa up there. Still, it will be decided on the tabletop, once they finally get here.