@Johnnyreb gave me the idea for it.

What about an upgrade, that allows you to remove a mission to pick from your pool?
So you dont have to present 3 missions to your opponent (when you are player 2), but only 2.
Sometimes you have two great missions for your fleet, but the last one just does not fit so well. Currently it is no problem for the most lists to pick the first player. The bonus of being first is bigger than the choice of the missions.
But if you can reduce your missions to 2, your opponent has to think twice to be player 1. So the fight for the ini (bid of 21+ already) might be over with it.

This upgrade can even cost 10 without a problem, should be unique, and can (or should) have the limit to medium or large ships only. Maybe even on top to flagship only.
Basically you are exchanging a bid fight for an auto include upgrade at a fix cost.

What do you think of an upgrade of this kind?

not needed... Take a bid of 0 and pick 3 cards from the Corellian Conflict which are geared to the 2nd player

To my ears that sounds like music (composed by John Williams himself). 2nd player needs a boost and this would be a great one. Especially if I could ditch one mission after seeing the fleet of my enemy.

So, Tokra, go on, become world champion and design this nice little card!

It's a very interesting idea and would completely change the dynamic around going first/second. I do agree that for most lists you can get two really potent mission picks for your list. I personally would love it as my lists are generally first player lists, it may put the cat amongst the pigeons in regards to bids.... But then if you are paying 10 points it becomes harder to find the bid.

I personally think it may be a nice admiral ability affecting the number of missions that either player bring,Maybe with some form of impact on the played mission ( points scored etc) if the admiral is killed.

3 minutes ago, slasher956 said:

not needed... Take a bid of 0 and pick 3 cards from the Corellian Conflict which are geared to the 2nd player

As i said. You will have only two missions that are fitting. There is always one mission that is not this bad for your opponent, and he will pick this one. There is a reason the most wanted mission is one of the most played missions (from what i see).

It would boost the second player really well, if you can remove one of the missions. It will make the choice really hard for the first player.
Just check it out in any match. If you can remove the red mission (most times Most Wanted) what is left for the first player to choose? And how bad will it be?

12 minutes ago, Darth Veggie said:

So, Tokra, go on, become world champion and design this nice little card!

He cannot. His infamous list is illegal since the new FAQ

3 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

He cannot. His infamous list is illegal since the new FAQ

I have already a new one. 8 Gozanti and 1 Raider

1 hour ago, Tokra said:

@Johnnyreb gave me the idea for it.

What about an upgrade, that allows you to remove a mission to pick from your pool?
So you dont have to present 3 missions to your opponent (when you are player 2), but only 2.
Sometimes you have two great missions for your fleet, but the last one just does not fit so well. Currently it is no problem for the most lists to pick the first player. The bonus of being first is bigger than the choice of the missions.
But if you can reduce your missions to 2, your opponent has to think twice to be player 1. So the fight for the ini (bid of 21+ already) might be over with it.

This upgrade can even cost 10 without a problem, should be unique, and can (or should) have the limit to medium or large ships only. Maybe even on top to flagship only.
Basically you are exchanging a bid fight for an auto include upgrade at a fix cost.

What do you think of an upgrade of this kind?

This kills the squadron.

If you know you will be second player (low initiative bid) then you make sure your objectives are ball busting. Opening salvo when you have 4+ ships is a no go, same with advanced gunnery. so you take one of those. Now if you have a lot of fighters you take superior positions... if you fighter attrition you just mario your way to victory. for Yellow, im still a fan of contested outpost as an imperial player. Planetary Ion cannons is also good to just hammer opponents. now with sloan it may be better (assuming you strip defense tokens).

Objectives typically favor the second player very handily, you need to play into that and make sure that you have a plan and strategy for every objective in your list. I see too many players lose games because they put 0 thought into their objectives or how to play their objectives. I played a store champ Saturday, my first round opponent had most wanted. He was playing a 3ISD list, i had 3 arqs 1 gozanti and a ton of fighters. We killed each others objective ships but I won because double points of an isd is way higher than double points of an Arq.

watching people have 4/5 bombers and go second second hoping their opponent picks superior positions only to realize that their opponent has more fighters/the objective isn't bomber only is another thing I've seen a lot of.

Every mission should be hard on your opponent if one of them is not then you need to be very good at playing it as any player worth their salt will pick it. There is strength in that too, its a very imperial mindset. Lets play Adv Gunnery/contested outpost/superior positions I have at least 1 ISD and 10 fighter stands in my list.... so Adv Gunnery is out, never EVER give the ISD that much power. 10 fighter stands means that Superior Positions is out unless my opponent really thinks he can win that war. So count on playing Contested Outpost... why? its a fixed result the max you can ever score is 120pts. 10 fighter stands over 4 rounds of bombing runs can wrack up insane points, the most I've gotten is 15 tokens at 15pts ea. That is 225 points before counting ships or fighters dead. It is not a fixed solution. Knowing that if my opponent is smart he will limit the damage by choosing contested outpost, I make sure I am very very comfortable playing that match, practice setting up objectives, figure out what speed i need to score on turn 1, how to deploy fighters, and how to punish them when they come for it.

Games of Armada are often lost on who went First/Second and which objective was picked. Its the nature of the game. It takes time to figure out.

whats your list what are you objectives and lets see what I would pick if i was first player, and see what objectives may work better.

also with squadrons being all the rage come thursday, i would start expecting to see some deep bids again.

18 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

This kills the squadron.

Could you explain why? I might have missed something.

And on the other had, even if it would "hurt" the squadrons, it is not this bad .

I'd argue it makes squadrons better although going second kinda blows for them.

I would drop my red objective, so now pick superior positions or fighter ambush and I am going to mario my way to victory.

When dog fighting and trying to win the squadron attrition, initiative is huge. Usually he who alphas (and alphas hard) wins. This can be offset but playing very intelligently and being very good at estimating ranges and making sure you don't get alpha'd.

Id argue that your proposed upgrade would potentially become the new auto include to the level demolisher was. Now that I really think about it. I don't see a reason not to play it with 8-12 fighter stands and just mario kart my way to victory.

I would LOVE an upgrade card that lets you swap an objective card with one of the Green campaign objectives from Corellian Conflict. Nebula Outskirts, Asteroids, or Independent Station.

2 hours ago, Tokra said:

So the fight for the ini (bid of 21+ already) might be over with it.

I disagree. You just start bidding for second player. If you take 2 ISDs and face an MSU fleet, your objectives could be Station Assault and Fire Lanes which would allow you to gain a large amount of points. You can play a very defensive fleet as second player with this. Or an Ackbar80 playing AG and Fire Lanes with Strategic.

I'm already creating fleets where I want to go second and I'm playing games where my opponent has a larger bid and goes second. Initiative is best to take when you out activate your opponent so you can go first/last, even without Demo. Taking second player means your opponent has to play into you.

This would be an interesting idea for a Thrawn commander card as objective cards fit into the theme of overall strategy.

Swap or remove one of your objective cards. Or perhaps you can choose from both your opponents and your own cards. Thoughts?

4 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

I disagree. You just start bidding for second player. If you take 2 ISDs and face an MSU fleet, your objectives could be Station Assault and Fire Lanes which would allow you to gain a large amount of points. You can play a very defensive fleet as second player with this. Or an Ackbar80 playing AG and Fire Lanes with Strategic.

I'm already creating fleets where I want to go second and I'm playing games where my opponent has a larger bid and goes second. Initiative is best to take when you out activate your opponent so you can go first/last, even without Demo. Taking second player means your opponent has to play into you.

This guy gets it.

its why I love armada. You can not ignore your bid or your objectives when fleet making and you need to recheck your fleet against your objectives over and over to make sure you are maximizing potential.

4 minutes ago, BergerFett said:

If you know you will be second player (low initiative bid) then you make sure your objectives are ball busting. Opening salvo when you have 4+ ships is a no go, same with advanced gunnery. so you take one of those. Now if you have a lot of fighters you take superior positions... if you fighter attrition you just mario your way to victory. for Yellow, im still a fan of contested outpost as an imperial player. Planetary Ion cannons is also good to just hammer opponents. now with sloan it may be better (assuming you strip defense tokens).

Objectives typically favor the second player very handily, you need to play into that and make sure that you have a plan and strategy for every objective in your list. I see too many players lose games because they put 0 thought into their objectives or how to play their objectives. I played a store champ Saturday, my first round opponent had most wanted. He was playing a 3ISD list, i had 3 arqs 1 gozanti and a ton of fighters. We killed each others objective ships but I won because double points of an isd is way higher than double points of an Arq.

watching people have 4/5 bombers and go second second hoping their opponent picks superior positions only to realize that their opponent has more fighters/the objective isn't bomber only is another thing I've seen a lot of.

There is nothing that can be done against player without a plan. Or those that pick the missions with a random pick (sometimes i have the feeling some do it).

But currently there is an initiatve race for being first player. Eighter being the player with more ships to double tap, or for the player with less ships to not get double tapped. Being second player is not to helpfull anymore. And you will always find a mission that is not so good for the second player and not this bad for the first. Just because a pick from 3 missions gives some room.
If you have a way to modifiy these mission choice, being the second player might usefull again.

If you can chooce who is first, and you see an opponent with this upgrade, you think twice to go first on all cost.

Currently i use "Most Wanted", "Fire Lanes", "Superior Positionions" most of the time with my lists. Fire Lanes might be switched with Fighter Ambush.
And i can tell you, that we play Most Wanted most of the time (more than 80% of the time), just because it is the least worse mission for my opponents. If i could have a way to remove this from the pool, my opponets would not always pick first all the time .

20 minutes ago, Tokra said:

Currently i use "Most Wanted", "Fire Lanes", "Superior Positionions" most of the time with my lists. Fire Lanes might be switched with Fighter Ambush.

And i can tell you, that we play Most Wanted most of the time (more than 80% of the time), just because it is the least worse mission for my opponents. If i could have a way to remove this from the pool, my opponets would not always pick first all the time .

stop taking Most wanted. My opponent took it this based weekend, i choose it and i got his ISD he got my arq i won the game based purely on objectives. Take Opening Salvo or Advanced Gunnery. When the hell did Red objectives become the go to default, they are some of the most punishing out there.

fighter ambush is tricky. its easy to over commit and wind up getting trucked instead.

I never pick Most Wanted from my opponent. I'm basically giving up points by doing that, and I've yet to see it work out for first player.

43 minutes ago, BergerFett said:

stop taking Most wanted. My opponent took it this based weekend, i choose it and i got his ISD he got my arq i won the game based purely on objectives. Take Opening Salvo or Advanced Gunnery. When the hell did Red objectives become the go to default, they are some of the most punishing out there.

fighter ambush is tricky. its easy to over commit and wind up getting trucked instead.

I didn't pick the most wanted. My opponent pick it from my missions. And it is one of the best missions for the red one, if you have flotilla in your fleet. Opening Salvo sound good as well, but it is not. Any MSU List will be happy to pick it against me, and rip me apart.

Sure, if your opponent has only 3 ISD and add a Most Wanted to his missions, he was stupid (hard but true).

But it does not change anything that it is the best red mission for my list. All other red missions would be an AUTO choice for the opponent, because they are way easier to handle (or can backfire on me really hard).
Most Wanted is not bad for me. Even if the opponent has only MSU ships, it is still fine. But the other two missions are way more harder for the opponent to win. So they pick Most Wanted.

15 minutes ago, Tokra said:

I didn't pick the most wanted. My opponent pick it from my missions. And it is one of the best missions for the red one, if you have flotilla in your fleet. Opening Salvo sound good as well, but it is not. Any MSU List will be happy to pick it against me, and rip me apart.

Sure, if your opponent has only 3 ISD and add a Most Wanted to his missions, he was stupid (hard but true).

But it does not change anything that it is the best red mission for my list. All other red missions would be an AUTO choice for the opponent, because they are way easier to handle (or can backfire on me really hard).
Most Wanted is not bad for me. Even if the opponent has only MSU ships, it is still fine. But the other two missions are way more harder for the opponent to win. So they pick Most Wanted.

whats your list then or give me a list. ill tell you what id pick and why as first player.

most wanted is the closest thing to a fair fight, which is great for first player and terrible for second player. then take advanced gunnery and let something shoot twice out of the same hull zone at the same target... watch them stop picking your reds

8 minutes ago, BergerFett said:

whats your list then or give me a list. ill tell you what id pick and why as first player.

most wanted is the closest thing to a fair fight, which is great for first player and terrible for second player. then take advanced gunnery and let something shoot twice out of the same hull zone at the same target... watch them stop picking your reds

He stated in another thread his new list of choice is a Raider and 8 Gozantis.

Wait what? Is it legal to pick CC objectives for tournaments?

16 minutes ago, BergerFett said:

whats your list then or give me a list. ill tell you what id pick and why as first player.

most wanted is the closest thing to a fair fight, which is great for first player and terrible for second player. then take advanced gunnery and let something shoot twice out of the same hull zone at the same target... watch them stop picking your reds

This is my list from the Vassal Summer Tournament:
Vassal Summer

This is my list from the EC:
EC Test 3

And this is the mentioned 9 ship list (more a fun list and no serious try). But i will test it out.
Wave 6 9 ships

Show me a better red mission for it, and i tell you why i am not using it .
The success for these list (at least the first two) should speak for its own .

10 minutes ago, Norell said:

Wait what? Is it legal to pick CC objectives for tournaments?

The green Mission are not legal.

He was talking about the red, blue and yellow one from the CC campaign. These are legal.

so.... most wanted IS the best choice here. You can not complain about your opponents wanting to try and balance it out. hell the fact that you can pick a gozanti for yourself and anything else for them means that this is still very advantageous of you.

That is like saying "i want to play rhymer and all the firesprays, can there be an upgrade that says my opponents don't get squadrons?"

I don't see the need for the proposed upgrade other than "im tired of playing the same objectives because my opponents want to try and balance the game out of my favor"

stop looking for ways to make the game easier for you and just play it. if you are tired of playing Most Wanted then retire the list for a while and play something new where they wont want to take it.

try blockade run instead may surprise you/confuse your opponents enough not to pic it.