I am not talking about me in this case (and for this upgrade). It would not even work, when it is (as i suggested) only for medium or large ships.
I am really fine with my opponent picking the Most Wanted. As you already said, i am already abusing the gozanti with the most wanted. And i have 6+ ships, so MSU lists do not harm me when they are first.

But such an upgrade would be good for lists with less ships, that have to fight some nasty ini battles right now ( @Darth Veggie has a 21 bid for example, just to be first, and this is sometimes still not enough).
You could finally do some lists with less ships and low ini bid. Something that you just cannot do so well rightt now.

37 minutes ago, Tokra said:

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 .

1st list - SP
2nd list - Nav Hazards
3rd list - Fighter Ambush

I've been working a Dual Glad list, as I've mentioned many times, which is the most likely list I would bring to a tournament, especially with the new content. Wave 5 I had a 6 activation list with 4 Tie/F and a FT Raider. Wave 6 I have a 5 activation with a Quasar and 6 Swarm Aces. Following that logic, I can tell you why I'd pick each of those objecives.

1. Rhymer does not synergize well with SP. Trying to do that means getting your squads behind me, which means jumping over or around my ships, which puts them dangerously close to me. I'll just flak them all. Since I run JJ, deploying out of position isn't a huge issue. Using Jendon to Relay your squads allows me to dictate when and where your squads will be, since you'll have to chase me for points. And since I play with 2 Glads, both titles, I'll have an easy job getting into your rear. My only fear is exposing myself to early by moving to fast, allowing your squads the opportunity to take shots.

2. Nav Hazards is in my dual Glad list. And I run Chart Officer on both. And you have a lot of ships to move, so either you land on something or you ram. I really like that objective and JJ means I should never land on an obstacle. And Nav Hazards will pretty much negate your Rhymer shots since I like to screen my ships with obstacles. If you catch me out in the open, you will likely kill me quick since it's preFAQ nonsense.

3. This is a harder choice. FA seems the best because I don't think your Tie/F will be dealing a ton of damage cards. And since my ships are low hull anyway, you can't really rip a lot of points. I actually think your list would be stronger with FL since you have double strategic and a lot of ships. In that case, I'd likely pick MW since I bet I could out navigate your ships and reduce the amount of dice you throw.

Neither of my lists have a good way to deal with flotillas so it's likely you just win because I can't kill them. I think the 3rd list is the strongest.

Here is my list, just pulled from memory. I'm not 100% on the exact list or points but this is my base structure.
Wave5
Glad I - OE, APT, ET, CO, Demo
Glad I - OE, APT, ET, CO, Insidious
Raider I - OE, FT
Arq - TRC, Needa, JJ
Goz - Comms Net
Goz - Comms Net
4 Tie/F

Wave 6
Glad I - OE, APT, CO, Demo
Glad I - OE, APT, CO, Insidious
Quasar (red AA) - JJ, Kallus, FC, BC, EHB, Stronghold
Goz - Comms Net
Goz - Comms Net
Valen, Howl, Soontir, Dengar, Ciena, Mauler

Most Wanted is just a bad choice for me. I have low hull ships that can't fend off a ton of small attacks. My hope would be to split your squads up and flak them all to death. Wave 6 would be a much better option for me to do that, but I have no way to kill the flotillas, so I don't see a point in trying to engage them. I'm not trying to boast or anything. Just giving you insight on how I play objectives.

How would you deal with a Cracken list? MW would be great for them.

20 minutes ago, Tokra said:

I am not talking about me in this case (and for this upgrade). It would not even work, when it is (as i suggested) only for medium or large ships.
I am really fine with my opponent picking the Most Wanted. As you already said, i am already abusing the gozanti with the most wanted. And i have 6+ ships, so MSU lists do not harm me when they are first.

But such an upgrade would be good for lists with less ships, that have to fight some nasty ini battles right now ( @Darth Veggie has a 21 bid for example, just to be first, and this is sometimes still not enough).
You could finally do some lists with less ships and low ini bid. Something that you just cannot do so well rightt now.

I think that upgrade would be super abuseable

motti isd2s with blast doors, and fighter support they take contested outpost/station assault/whatever else you are forced to fight for a station either way and deal with 34pts of hull nevermind shield regen. it seems way too easy for the second player at that point.

if someone bids 20-25pts down and you don't feel advantaged, i dont know what to tell you.

Any ship + H-9 = dead flotillas, people need to stop ignoring them and start bringing answers for them.

26 minutes ago, BergerFett said:

I think that upgrade would be super abuseable

motti isd2s with blast doors, and fighter support they take contested outpost/station assault/whatever else you are forced to fight for a station either way and deal with 34pts of hull nevermind shield regen. it seems way too easy for the second player at that point.

if someone bids 20-25pts down and you don't feel advantaged, i dont know what to tell you.

Doesn't sound like a strong list to me. If your opponent has last and first with MSU you won't be able to kill one of his ships. But you lose the game if he takes out 1 ISD. Even worse: He could ignore the ISDs and simply take out both stations.

And even if, for your strategy to work you need a bid yourself for it to guarantee it - and thereby weaken an already not very strong fleet.

3 hours 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 .

I brought this very issue up some time ago on how red objectives are actually weak comparatively to blue and yellow against a variety of lists, particularly the widely popular msu lists out there. Besides @Snipafist almost no one understood what the hell i was talking about including yourself. Good to see you coming around.

Most wanted is often the best fit in your list with some advanced gunnery /station assault outsiders. Trouble is msu gets an easy out with most wanted, and most wanted is still comparatively the best pick by a large margin for your opponent even if they have a large ship, because first player properly played can keep a large ship out of harm's way, I don't have to tell you, euros final was a great example of this. It's to the point where I can look at my opponents list without seeing objectives and most of the time just pick the red blind and actually be happy with it.

I had thought about this problem and considered these three solutions.

1. Release new objectives or errata existing reds to make red objectives in particular much worse for your opponents, with special attention to msu...

2. Errata the rules about how objectives are chosen... Perhaps they are chosen randomly, or after players look at each other's list, second player may remove an objective from his list and first player picks from the other two.

3. Release some in game card that could enable objective manipulation. I thought it would be best as a commander card, thrawn or Palpatine being the most flavorful.

Anyways, I'm not a game designer, and I'm not even sure it's much of an issue past the annoyance I get when say I construct a strategic fleet and never get to play my strategic objectives, instead playing most wanted near 100 percent of the time. But I did get the feeling of late that red objectives just aren't that powerful as I once thought, and as I'm seeing everyday, more and more people are catching on to that notion.

1 hour ago, Undeadguy said:

2nd list - Nav Hazards

Good point. I changed it in the last second to superior position. because i didn't find it good enough against MSU lists.
So you would most likely pick it again for the same reasons as in the 1st list.

But i was playing most wanted 6 times in 9 games on the EC. This speaks for itself .

19 minutes ago, Tokra said:

Good point. I changed it in the last second to superior position. because i didn't find it good enough against MSU lists.
So you would most likely pick it again for the same reasons as in the 1st list.

But i was playing most wanted 6 times in 9 games on the EC. This speaks for itself .

And did you win those 6 games?

19 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

And did you win those 6 games?

i won 5 of these.

But we are drifting away from the path of the thread .

1 hour ago, Darth Veggie said:

Doesn't sound like a strong list to me. If your opponent has last and first with MSU you won't be able to kill one of his ships. But you lose the game if he takes out 1 ISD. Even worse: He could ignore the ISDs and simply take out both stations.

And even if, for your strategy to work you need a bid yourself for it to guarantee it - and thereby weaken an already not very strong fleet.

its not the core strategy but you play 400. there are ways for double ISD to take down MSU. you can deploy in ways where they can not escape. we are arguing over semantics. being able to drop the lesser of your objectives is straight bad for the game.

13 minutes ago, Tokra said:

i won 5 of these.

But we are drifting away from the path of the thread .

And that's why I don't pick MW hahaha

To wrap things back around, my opinion on initiative is simple. First player goes first, second player goes last. Figure out some rule that allows that to happen. I don't think you can alter the objectives in a way that makes people bid differently for initiative. If objectives are weak, people go for 1st. If they are strong, they go for 2nd. The issue itself is activations, which you of all people should understand since you own 8 flots.

I'm not saying the OP is a bad idea, but I think it needs restrictions. If it was tied to a commander, Thrawn for example, it would limit the crazy objective/fleet combos like an Ackbar80 with AG and Fire Lanes. Basically it allows your commander lets your fleet be built around specific 2 objectives.

2 hours ago, BergerFett said:

I think that upgrade would be super abuseable

motti isd2s with blast doors, and fighter support they take contested outpost/station assault/whatever else you are forced to fight for a station either way and deal with 34pts of hull nevermind shield regen. it seems way too easy for the second player at that point.

You could just take Salvage Run with this though....

From a design perspective I'd rather leave the three card requirement and loosen the color restrictions. In other words two of one color and one of another.

Regarding bidding for first, I have already encountered a large number of bid-for-second fleets since Strategic arrived, and as best I can tell they're growing as understanding grows. This doesn't change the initiative bid war, if anything it will make it worse as now only fleets that try to ignore both 1st 2nd biases won't bid to high heaven, and there are precious few of those

11 hours ago, BergerFett said:

there are ways for double ISD to take down MSU. you can deploy in ways where they can not escape.

That I love to see - especially because you are most likely outdeployed.

11 hours ago, BergerFett said:

we are arguing over semantics.

I don't know what you mean by that.

11 hours ago, BergerFett said:

being able to drop the lesser of your objectives is straight bad for the game.

And I most certainly cannot see how this follows from the the former statements. It seems to me to be simply an argument by repetition.

15 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

You could just take Salvage Run with this though....

that mission is a lot of fun with an interdictor you can do some janky things with those fields. i remember getting ready for regionals having this in my line up and my buddy and i spending about an hour going over ideal obstacle placements for the first one and then take pictures so we could analyze and memorize.

i played station assault all 3 games lol but it was a fun exercise

4 hours ago, Darth Veggie said:

That I love to see - especially because you are most likely outdeployed.

I don't know what you mean by that.

And I most certainly cannot see how this follows from the the former statements. It seems to me to be simply an argument by repetition.

you have the 2 isds deploy about 1/3 of the way in from each flanking edge (left and right) facing each other. what this does is makes it so your opponent really cant flank or get behind your front arcs. usually they will go after motti and then they get caught in the other ISDs front arcs. at that point the isd starts 1 shotting things like raiders as long as you have the 1 accuracy. ive seen it played out about a half dozen times when the cloneolisher list was really strong and paired with the old rhymer ball of any form, the 2x ISD lists game out on top handidly every game. maybe its my meta or my play group but a few of us ran similar 2x ISD lists and this was the best way to counter the clonolisher MSU. If the gozanti raider sloane list becomes all the rage, id expect the H-9 stock to go back up or the other bomber ace that auto adds an accuracy so that you can always get rid of the scatter. part of playing 2 ISDs was knowing you were always out deployed and out activated so you needed to make sure you know how to play that game very well. it took a lot of practice.

arguing semantics was maybe the wrong terminology. We are debating over which list is better or worse on paper in hypothetical situations. what are objectives like, what are obstacles like, etc.

my point is that by dropping a third objective from your line up really only benefits skew type lists as the OP has been using. If it was a random drop, then maybe, MAYBE, i could see it. at that point take ozzel all the gozanti's raiders and take blockade run + something else that benefits the skew, and you have a 50/50 they take blockade run, which with 10ish ships, and played properly (stalling to speed 0, then jumping to speed 3, you can kind of only open yourself up for 1 turn of shooting before you blow past them in the target area. these are extreme examples, and i just through them together for this post, but i think it gets my point across. I am not a fan of skew, and being able to drop an objective to make that skew even stronger seems bad for the game. If anything i could see it being an imperial admiral as they would be more prepared to set the engagement on there terms a lot (based on era of star wars).

7 hours ago, BergerFett said:

you have the 2 isds deploy about 1/3 of the way in from each flanking edge (left and right) facing each other. what this does is makes it so your opponent really cant flank or get behind your front arcs. usually they will go after motti and then they get caught in the other ISDs front arcs. at that point the isd starts 1 shotting things like raiders as long as you have the 1 accuracy. ive seen it played out about a half dozen times when the cloneolisher list was really strong and paired with the old rhymer ball of any form, the 2x ISD lists game out on top handidly every game. maybe its my meta or my play group but a few of us ran similar 2x ISD lists and this was the best way to counter the clonolisher MSU. If the gozanti raider sloane list becomes all the rage, id expect the H-9 stock to go back up or the other bomber ace that auto adds an accuracy so that you can always get rid of the scatter. part of playing 2 ISDs was knowing you were always out deployed and out activated so you needed to make sure you know how to play that game very well. it took a lot of practice.

I don't see this as a last-in-first-out list can quite easily escape ISD front arcs. However...

7 hours ago, BergerFett said:

arguing semantics was maybe the wrong terminology. We are debating over which list is better or worse on paper in hypothetical situations. what are objectives like, what are obstacles like, etc.

You are completelly right with this point and maybe that is what makes the former point so difficult to settle. Unfortunatelly, we have no other way to settle it. Even a game won't settle it, because player skill is so important here. Merely a lot of statistical data about exactly this setup could settle it. And there is no way to get it for such a hypothetical scenario.

7 hours ago, BergerFett said:

my point is that by dropping a third objective from your line up really only benefits skew type lists as the OP has been using. If it was a random drop, then maybe, MAYBE, i could see it. at that point take ozzel all the gozanti's raiders and take blockade run + something else that benefits the skew, and you have a 50/50 they take blockade run, which with 10ish ships, and played properly (stalling to speed 0, then jumping to speed 3, you can kind of only open yourself up for 1 turn of shooting before you blow past them in the target area. these are extreme examples, and i just through them together for this post, but i think it gets my point across. I am not a fan of skew, and being able to drop an objective to make that skew even stronger seems bad for the game. If anything i could see it being an imperial admiral as they would be more prepared to set the engagement on there terms a lot (based on era of star wars).

I think this is simply not true. CLOSE to EVERY list that goes second would benefit from dropping the third objective. Of course this means that it would also benefit skew lists. However, I think it benefits a list like @Tokra's less. Because he regularily plays list with 6+ activations he is not dependend on high value objectives in order to counter last-in-first-out (it is not possible against his lists). However, other lists (2-5 activations) are quite regularily right from the beginning doomed when they face a last-in-first-out list (like Demo triple tap or Mothma MC30s). Take @Aresius notorious list (1 Liberty, 5 Gozanti, lot of squads, 385 points). He is the former Italian champion and semi-finalist of the Europeans. As far as I know, he has not lost one single game with his list, if he had last-in-first-out. Heck, the European champion even lost against him during the Europeans - he was quiet lucky that Aresius had to face Tokra in the semi-finals - who is, as I mentioned, is not prone to last-in-first-out because of his many activations.

One final point: I love this community. After the post before your last post, I thought this discussion would go nuts and courtesy would be stomped with feet. It seemed to me that some aggression came into the discussion. But your last post was polite and clearly argumentative. Thank you! That is why I love this community.

16 hours ago, Darth Veggie said:

One final point: I love this community. After the post before your last post, I thought this discussion would go nuts and courtesy would be stomped with feet. It seemed to me that some aggression came into the discussion. But your last post was polite and clearly argumentative. Thank you! That is why I love this community.

I know that i can become passionate especially about Star Wars and my favorite tabletop game so I tried to dial it back, slow down my typing and better explain myself. Ill save the vitriol for the 40k facebook groups

17 hours ago, Darth Veggie said:

Take @Aresius notorious list (1 Liberty, 5 Gozanti, lot of squads, 385 points).

I play Rebel and Imperial in the same list!!! :D.