Did this get reposted somewhere? I've had a lot of interest in this article today for some reason.
Devastating Offense: Using Devastator in Star Wars Armada.
Fair enough. What about Vader on the less squishy VSD instead of the Raider? Since I'd like to put Instigator right in the middle of things, I'd rather not lose Vader with it.
I went up against a Devastator at a store championship recently. It is powerful, and it did 1 shot my AF Flagship, buuuut , willingly giving out those token means that you leave the door wide open for counter-attacks, and the Devastator died next activation.
On 7/23/2017 at 9:34 AM, gothound said:I went up against a Devastator at a store championship recently. It is powerful, and it did 1 shot my AF Flagship, buuuut , willingly giving out those token means that you leave the door wide open for counter-attacks, and the Devastator died next activation.
Avoiding this is the hard part. But it's not impossible, and you can actually do it pretty reliably with practice. As noted in the video, the most consistent way is to hit your major targets and then focus on the lesser enemies while evacuating. It might even be a good idea to run off after hitting your main target and flak away at any squadrons in range.
On 7/23/2017 at 0:49 AM, thecactusman17 said:Did this get reposted somewhere? I've had a lot of interest in this article today for some reason.
Its a really good article about a card that most people dismiss but holds a nice place in the cannon. I've recommended it to my group.
I have a list with the new avengerBT and devastator. Four activations, 8 deployments, 2 one-shooters. Not tried yet though. Maybe tomorrow...
So there's a phrase that comes to mind when I think more about this, and it comes from Warhammer Fantasy Battle and has, hilariously, come full circle:
A Death Star unit.
Or, as I prefer to think of it, "All your points in one basket."
Yes, IF your opponent lets you, it can be devastating (see what I did there?) but your plan is predicated on a couple of slim ideas:
1) Your opponent wastes a round on ineffective long range fire that lets you remove your tokens.
2) Your opponent then sits a fat target right in the Devastator's front arc at medium range for next turn's firing.
Considering that over half your points are in Devastator and Vader, it's likely you're going to be out-deployed by even a modest number of activations - and they'll see this combo coming from a mile away. Why not hunt support ships or combine to remove the Devastator in one or two turns?
Any plan that relies on your opponent playing badly is not a good plan.
Don't forget that with the new FAQ, you can now use Intel Officer when spending your own defense tokens to reroll with Vader.
1 minute ago, Warlord Zepnick said:Don't forget that with the new FAQ, you can now use Intel Officer when spending your own defense tokens to reroll with Vader.
**previous two FAQs
:)
Vader really isn't a great pair with the title. What I do think is that he's an excellent squadron to intercept incoming bombers with, and that can really go a long way to ensuring Dev survives the fight.
I liked to pair Devestator with Tagge to great effect.
Archived, so it wont be lost to the sands of time.
On 7/25/2017 at 10:12 AM, iamfanboy said:So there's a phrase that comes to mind when I think more about this, and it comes from Warhammer Fantasy Battle and has, hilariously, come full circle:
A Death Star unit.
Or, as I prefer to think of it, "All your points in one basket."
Yes, IF your opponent lets you, it can be devastating (see what I did there?) but your plan is predicated on a couple of slim ideas:
1) Your opponent wastes a round on ineffective long range fire that lets you remove your tokens.
2) Your opponent then sits a fat target right in the Devastator's front arc at medium range for next turn's firing.
Considering that over half your points are in Devastator and Vader, it's likely you're going to be out-deployed by even a modest number of activations - and they'll see this combo coming from a mile away. Why not hunt support ships or combine to remove the Devastator in one or two turns?
Any plan that relies on your opponent playing badly is not a good plan.
I'm happy to debate you on this, and I certainly am not saying that Devastator doesn't have flaws. It requires a lot of careful practice and a smart head for when and how to take risks.
Oh, and I don't run Darth Vader as a commander. In fact, I think my article actively notes that Darth Vader's ability actually causes issues because players should be using their tokens to prevent damage, not increase attack power.
Lets go first with points. Without a commander, my preferred Devastator build weighs in at about 160 points. While this is certainly a much larger amount than Demolisher, it's roughly in line with other super-build capitol ships such as a fully kitted out Home One or Liberty class MC80. And unlike those other two ships, it has a strong capability to remove another super-defensive large ship such as an MC80 or ISD and still have a bonus shot afterward.
Second, I take issue with your contention that a player in the front arc of a Star Destroyer must have been flying poorly. The ISD has a native maneuver chart that is almost equal to that of several much smaller ships at speed 3, and few players would suggest that ending up in attack range of them is strictly the result of poor play. An ISD that deploys effectively, maneuvers carefully, and prepares accordingly can certainly find itself in a range to attack an enemy ships at full power, especially when Devastator rolls its full frontal battery at long range. The reality is that a properly flown ISD should always have targets in both range and arc by the end of its maneuver. This is doubly true when it has last-first advantage.
Finally, I agree with you that one way to avoid overpowering Devastator is to not shoot at it. But this results in an outcome that is also often equally unacceptable: having a fully shielded, fully hulled Imperial Star Destroyer at medium or close range bearing down on a target of its choice. However, there are other ways to work on this. The first is to provide a second combat threat to your opponents, because any one combat ship is going to be isolated and either taken down or bypassed. This is a critical second step towards making any combat ship work and Devastator is no exception to this important rule.
3 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:I'm happy to debate you on this, and I certainly am not saying that Devastator doesn't have flaws. It requires a lot of careful practice and a smart head for when and how to take risks.
Oh, and I don't run Darth Vader as a commander. In fact, I think my article actively notes that Darth Vader's ability actually causes issues because players should be using their tokens to prevent damage, not increase attack power.
Lets go first with points. Without a commander, my preferred Devastator build weighs in at about 160 points. While this is certainly a much larger amount than Demolisher, it's roughly in line with other super-build capitol ships such as a fully kitted out Home One or Liberty class MC80. And unlike those other two ships, it has a strong capability to remove another super-defensive large ship such as an MC80 or ISD and still have a bonus shot afterward.Second, I take issue with your contention that a player in the front arc of a Star Destroyer must have been flying poorly. The ISD has a native maneuver chart that is almost equal to that of several much smaller ships at speed 3, and few players would suggest that ending up in attack range of them is strictly the result of poor play. An ISD that deploys effectively, maneuvers carefully, and prepares accordingly can certainly find itself in a range to attack an enemy ships at full power, especially when Devastator rolls its full frontal battery at long range. The reality is that a properly flown ISD should always have targets in both range and arc by the end of its maneuver. This is doubly true when it has last-first advantage.
Finally, I agree with you that one way to avoid overpowering Devastator is to not shoot at it. But this results in an outcome that is also often equally unacceptable: having a fully shielded, fully hulled Imperial Star Destroyer at medium or close range bearing down on a target of its choice. However, there are other ways to work on this. The first is to provide a second combat threat to your opponents, because any one combat ship is going to be isolated and either taken down or bypassed. This is a critical second step towards making any combat ship work and Devastator is no exception to this important rule.
My opinion is frankly untested - I've only borrowed my buddy's ISD once, and I went with Relentless because I'm a cautious sort that prefers to adjust my plan as the battle goes along. I'm just applying close to thirty years of wargaming experience to the notion and it reminds me of a friend's 800-point Chaos Knight regiment that wasn't expecting or capable of dealing with 250 points of cannons giving it enfilading fire. Yes, it's scary, but it has weaknesses - particularly with Hammerhead swarms being a newly minted thing - and I'm not sure it would mesh with my playstyle.
After thinking about it, I feel as though your Devastator is a tradepiece, not a deathstar. You simply want to remove more points of the opponent's models than the Devastator cost you, and even if it dies you're still ahead. I think that the main reason it gets compared to Demolisher is because Demo is the same thing - a guided missile that will probably die, but it'll take something with it. The positive is that Devastator is more likely to live through the initial exchange and dish the pain again; the negative is that the difference between their costs is enough for another ship entirely, like a slaved Arkitten or External Racks Raider.
But the great thing about Armada is that there are a lot of valid solutions for listbuilding, with radically fewer dead choices than X-Wing or Warmachine. The other titles are better (Avenger with Sloane?) but Devastator is high risk high reward.
1 hour ago, iamfanboy said:My opinion is frankly untested - I've only borrowed my buddy's ISD once, and I went with Relentless because I'm a cautious sort that prefers to adjust my plan as the battle goes along. I'm just applying close to thirty years of wargaming experience to the notion and it reminds me of a friend's 800-point Chaos Knight regiment that wasn't expecting or capable of dealing with 250 points of cannons giving it enfilading fire. Yes, it's scary, but it has weaknesses - particularly with Hammerhead swarms being a newly minted thing - and I'm not sure it would mesh with my playstyle.
After thinking about it, I feel as though your Devastator is a tradepiece, not a deathstar. You simply want to remove more points of the opponent's models than the Devastator cost you, and even if it dies you're still ahead. I think that the main reason it gets compared to Demolisher is because Demo is the same thing - a guided missile that will probably die, but it'll take something with it. The positive is that Devastator is more likely to live through the initial exchange and dish the pain again; the negative is that the difference between their costs is enough for another ship entirely, like a slaved Arkitten or External Racks Raider.
But the great thing about Armada is that there are a lot of valid solutions for listbuilding, with radically fewer dead choices than X-Wing or Warmachine. The other titles are better (Avenger with Sloane?) but Devastator is high risk high reward.
You're getting warmer on the tradepiece observation. Devastator can trade for straight points, which is certainly nice. The other thing it can do is trade for activation advantage in a way that few other ships can due to the way it distributes attacks, hitting both close-medium range and long range ships with overwhelming firepower. While this may not immediately earn its points back, it can cripple enemy fleets dependent on key ships or activation order and enable Demolisher or a fighter wing to confidently engage the remainder of the enemy fleet.
On 6/27/2017 at 11:11 PM, thecactusman17 said:This article was written and recorded for the June 2017 Writing contest entry on the FFG forums. It can be reposted with proper credit to me by on the Star Wars Armada forum at fantasyflightgames.com, or by the author at his preferred website in the future.
Instead of photos, this article refers to a video demonstrating Devastator and its applications here:
Devastator is a powerful Imperial Star Destroyer title handily capable of winning games that is frequently maligned and underused. Many players simply don’t play this upgrade after reading the card text. Devastator is a powerful ship that requires excellent positioning, careful risk management, and a strong understanding of the attack and defense rules to use effectively. When it has maximized its dice addition ability, it boasts the most powerful single attack possible in Star Wars Armada.
Devastator – 10 points
"Once per round, while attacking from your front hull zone, you may add 1 blue die to your attack pool for each of your discarded defense tokens."
In exchange for using Defense Tokens until they are discarded, you gain additional dice for one attack from your front arc each round. However unlike other upgrades that sacrifice defense to modify attacks Devastator has no built-in mechanic to spend or discard tokens. As such, unless you add such a mechanic (the most obvious being Darth Vader) you have to spend your defense tokens during the defense step. And after careful testing, I have found a fundamental truth: Devastator ’s ability to trade defense for offense only works when it uses its defense tokens to defend itself as effectively and completely as possible.
In the video example below, I have set up Devastator against a fairly reasonable encounter: an Assault Frigate with Electronic Countermeasures, and an escorting GR75 Medium Transport Flotilla running naked. While a larger fleet may include other threats, this is a sufficient demonstration for our purposes. We will assume that Devastator has first player for this scenario. In this scenario, Devastator is an Imperial-2 Star Destroyer armed with:
- Intel Officer
- Gunnery Teams
- Electronic Countermeasures
- SW-7 Ion Batteries
- X17 Turbolaser Batteries
- Devastator title (obviously)
Our first action as Devastator is to maneuver into a position where all of our opponent’s firepower can only attack Devastator, and yet at the same time is the least likely to do extreme damage. In this case, we have attacked a place where we will be double arced at long range. I have also positioned so that I can cover effectively all of my opponent’s end positions regardless if they increase or decrease speed. My opponent attacks twice and each time, Devastator spends 3 defense tokens to rapidly power up. When my opponent spends an Accuracy result, ECM ensures that the tokens are spent anyway. After two attacks, Devastator has discarded three Defense Tokens and the enemy Assault Frigate moves into close range. The enemy Flotilla moves into long range. The next round begins. Devastator has taken two points of damage thanks to its defense, one to its shields on each side. It has only one Defense Token left (in this case, a Redirect).
Devastator activates first again. With the Assault Frigate at close range (barely), it fires its normal complement of 4 red and 4 blue dice after revealing a navigate command. It hits for 7 damage, and rolls blue accuracy results. However, with an ECM on the enemy Assault Frigate, there is no point in trying to turn off the brace. Instead, Devastator uses Intel Officer on the Brace. If the Assault Frigate takes the damage in full, it will receive 3 points of hull damage and a critical effect. It braces and 4 damage destroys shields but not hull. Using Gunnery Teams, Devastator then targets the Flotilla at long range. This time, it adds 3 blue dice to its red dice roll. Thanks to the SW7s, the red accuracy is enough to shut down the enemy Scatter token and the damage overwhelms the other evade. Devastator has just tied activation advantage on its own. Devastator cannot maneuver to make a rammed inside turn for maximum turn-to-distance ratio, but makes the next best maneuver and rams with a speed 2 sharp turn. This places a single point of hull damage on the Assault Frigate and forces the frigate to try to speed around Devastator. while leaving Devastator in a position to intercept a low speed or low maneuver turn. The Assault Frigate reveals a repair command to immediately repair its hull damage and move 3 shields to its exposed side, but is unable to fully escape the front arc. It attacks twice with its double-arc, removing the last defense token and chewing through the shields on one side. The round ends.
Devastator now has full power and no defense tokens left, with most of its front shields remaining. The Assault Frigate has full hull and shields on the one side, with a redirect token it can use at close range. Mathematically it is possible for a normal Imperial Star Destroyer to destroy the Assault Frigate but it would require 10 damage from 8 dice, an exceedingly rare result.
Devastator is not a "normal" ISD2 and rolls 12 dice, 8 of which automatically count for damage from its front arc. It rolls a perfectly reasonable 2 damage with its red dice. The Assault Frigate is utterly annihilated in a single salvo from full health and minus one defense token. This leaves Devastator also free to attack other ships or squadrons in its front arc, and to reposition for the next round.
Because Devastator no longer has Defense Tokens, it should maneuver to attack either a target that cannot return fire (such as a close range or unarmed target), or a threat that could destroy Devastator by closing into effective range but currently cannot (such as a Demolisher or MC30). If the remaining friendly ships and squadrons are sufficient to handle the situation, you may alternatively benefit from simply running away from the enemy threats while Devastator still has sufficient shields and hull to survive a chase. This latter option works well if there is another friendly high-threat option, such as Demolisher , that can also remove ships from the board quickly.I hope that readers have found this information valuable and have incentive to reconsider Devastator in their future lists. If you have further questions or concerns about this title or article, feel free to contact me by forum PM or on my youtube channel.
I turned my friend who is new on to this. He watched it, digested it, and absolutely loves it! Thanks for the review. This can truly be a powerful card; especially now that Sloane is out there.
Flew Devastator last night. Finished the game by one shotting a full-up Quasar. 14 dice, all paint. Glorious.
6 minutes ago, TaeSWXW said:Flew Devastator last night. Finished the game by one shotting a full-up Quasar. 14 dice, all paint. Glorious.
Ow. I'll be flying it in a store champs tomorrow... we'll see how it goes.
On 7/26/2017 at 1:44 PM, thecactusman17 said:I'm happy to debate you on this, and I certainly am not saying that Devastator doesn't have flaws. It requires a lot of careful practice and a smart head for when and how to take risks.
Oh, and I don't run Darth Vader as a commander. In fact, I think my article actively notes that Darth Vader's ability actually causes issues because players should be using their tokens to prevent damage, not increase attack power.
Lets go first with points. Without a commander, my preferred Devastator build weighs in at about 160 points. While this is certainly a much larger amount than Demolisher, it's roughly in line with other super-build capitol ships such as a fully kitted out Home One or Liberty class MC80. And unlike those other two ships, it has a strong capability to remove another super-defensive large ship such as an MC80 or ISD and still have a bonus shot afterward.Second, I take issue with your contention that a player in the front arc of a Star Destroyer must have been flying poorly. The ISD has a native maneuver chart that is almost equal to that of several much smaller ships at speed 3, and few players would suggest that ending up in attack range of them is strictly the result of poor play. An ISD that deploys effectively, maneuvers carefully, and prepares accordingly can certainly find itself in a range to attack an enemy ships at full power, especially when Devastator rolls its full frontal battery at long range. The reality is that a properly flown ISD should always have targets in both range and arc by the end of its maneuver. This is doubly true when it has last-first advantage.
Finally, I agree with you that one way to avoid overpowering Devastator is to not shoot at it. But this results in an outcome that is also often equally unacceptable: having a fully shielded, fully hulled Imperial Star Destroyer at medium or close range bearing down on a target of its choice. However, there are other ways to work on this. The first is to provide a second combat threat to your opponents, because any one combat ship is going to be isolated and either taken down or bypassed. This is a critical second step towards making any combat ship work and Devastator is no exception to this important rule.
Who do you run as commander?
Motti, to give you that little extra risk cushion?
Jerry, to keep the maws of death pointed anywhere you want?
I like Motti. It's not just about overall risk, Motti lets me use any repairs to regen shields instead of repairing hull, and still have enough hull left to tank hits with defense tokens down.
Two(ish) quick assumptions on Devasator I think are correct:
- You can use the added blue dice from the title at long range - and once added you can then add more blue with CF and MW
- You can spend defense tokens even when they produce no effect (ie Evade can be spent a close range and Brace when there is 1 or less damage)
Yes to both.
Devastator seems too little benefit for too big weaknesses. Not only does the title cost alot, it only work once per round and requires you to be in a vulnerable position. Honestly id think its better if it cost less or worked on two attack per round. Also people saying Sloane is gona spawn more devastator... unlikely, sloane doesent need to destroy your tokens. Avenger exist and is half the cost of Devastator. The opportunity cost seems too high for the payoff and requires too perfect a match to work. Remember how average avenger used to be, because it only worked with PO. Its the same reason devastator is subpar for the most part, in theory its nice, in real game if it doesent go exactly as you planned 100% its over.
7 hours ago, mintek917 said:Devastator seems too little benefit for too big weaknesses. Not only does the title cost alot, it only work once per round and requires you to be in a vulnerable position. Honestly id think its better if it cost less or worked on two attack per round. Also people saying Sloane is gona spawn more devastator... unlikely, sloane doesent need to destroy your tokens. Avenger exist and is half the cost of Devastator. The opportunity cost seems too high for the payoff and requires too perfect a match to work. Remember how average avenger used to be, because it only worked with PO. Its the same reason devastator is subpar for the most part, in theory its nice, in real game if it doesent go exactly as you planned 100% its over.
Nobody used Avenger with Overload Pulse effectively. The winning play was consistently hitting your opponent with 3-4 Firesprays (now it would probably be Morna Kee, Maarek Stele, Col. Jendon, and Boba Fett) to force the opponent to spend tokens. The only major difference is that now you can get that effect for 3 points (boarding troopers) instead of the cost of a squadron wing.
@thecactusman17 Any new thoughts on Devastator equipped on the new ISDs? Certainly some new combos to explore there.
Kuat - ER/EL, SW7, Devastator, Vader? Max of 17 dice with Devastator fully going.