4 minutes ago, IronNerd said:

Again, I apologize if I come off as blunt, but I seriously don't understand your angle on this. ISDs are pretty maneuverable ships, capable of speed 3 with a fair number of clicks. Throw in Jerry, and good luck to anyone trying to stay out of that front arc. Are you just planning to run away the entire game? Like... directly away? Board edges exist... and the opponent still has another 250 points of list coming at you...

Armada is supposed to be a strategic game - so use some strategy when you deploy: decide what you actually need to kill and plan to kill that and only that.

122 points is a lot of points to sink into a single ship. If they are fielding Avenger/BT that means they're cutting back somewhere else - either activations or quality. In either case you can deploy then play to ignore/minimize the effect of Avenger/BT and focus down everything else they brought. Done correctly you will walk away the victor.

If they're using Jerry and spamming Navs and moving around at Speed 3 then all you bank on the fact that they don't have Gunnery Teams and you fly head in, at full speed, let him have one kill, then let him spend the next two or three rounds turning around.

Just now, Madaghmire said:

I blame the mc80 for not having lando.

A little bit of Lando special sauce helps to fortify any disposition.

1 minute ago, TaeSWXW said:

Armada is supposed to be a strategic game - so use some strategy when you deploy: decide what you actually need to kill and plan to kill that and only that.

DIASGREE! KILL EVERYTHING AND THEN PUNCH YOUR OPPONENT IN THE KIDNEYS!

3 minutes ago, IronNerd said:

The difference being that Demolisher is MUCH easier to kill. Take away BT and Avenger and it's still an ISD-1! I'd argue even heavy bomber lists have a hard time killing an ISD before they lose their key carrier. In fact, I saw that exact thing this weekend at the store champs. Did the ISD eat 2 B-Wings and 2 Y-Wings? Yes, but he killed an MC80 in return...

I have to disagree. An ISD I isn't all that hard to kill with either my MSU list or my squadron list.

My squadron list doesn't have a ship nearly as expensive as the ISD. If it wants to steer straight into the Yavaris B-Wing cloud, it's gonna die real fast. If I lose Yavaris in the exchange, I'm not worried. Rebel MSU lists with TRC90s are laughably good at killing it as well. Being faster and more manueverable, they can keep their distance while consistently putting out TRC damage.

In both these cases, I consider Avenger EASIER to deal with than Demolisher. Because of it's foot print and manueverability, Demo can avoid the squadron cloud a bit better and keep pace with TRC90s to a degree. TRC90s also can't maintain the stand off with Demolisher like they can with Avenger because of Demo's evade token.

15 minutes ago, IronNerd said:

Again, I apologize if I come off as blunt, but I seriously don't understand your angle on this. ISDs are pretty maneuverable ships, capable of speed 3 with a fair number of clicks. Throw in Jerry, and good luck to anyone trying to stay out of that front arc. Are you just planning to run away the entire game? Like... directly away? Board edges exist... and the opponent still has another 250 points of list coming at you...

Madine TRC90s with Engine Techs. Trust me, it's amazeballs. Jerry ISDs ain't got nothing on it. Ask @CaribbeanNinja how it's been

Just now, Truthiness said:

Madine TRC90s with Engine Techs. Trust me, it's amazeballs. Ask @CaribbeanNinja how it's been

I agree that this would work really well. In fact, in our post tournament discussion I was theorizing that vette swarm is one of the better counters for Avenger/BT. BUT the point of my post is that I think Avenger/BT is bad for the game, and coming up with one counter doesn't mean that it's a fair and balanced tool.

22 minutes ago, IronNerd said:

First, I like your style. If you have more ISDs than them, you just handle it and keep rolling on.

Problem is that the Avenger/BT is actually not that expensive. 122 points gets you Avenger/BT plus Leading Shots. Plus, it's still an ISD, so it's not easy to kill it in retaliation. This is especially true when it just one-shot your big bad ship.

All true, however its hard to one shot a Motti ISD as it takes 16-17 damage to kill. And that isd to isd trade is going to be either even or in your favor (and once that avenger is dead, the list doesnt really have teeth anymore)

Another good tech vs Avenger is G8 to prevent it getting into close range.

Throw 4 THH with external racks in front of it. Can't kill them all.

7 minutes ago, IronNerd said:

I agree that this would work really well. In fact, in our post tournament discussion I was theorizing that vette swarm is one of the better counters for Avenger/BT. BUT the point of my post is that I think Avenger/BT is bad for the game, and coming up with one counter doesn't mean that it's a fair and balanced tool.

The thing is you don't need a CR90 swarm to play keep-away. You just need to play keep-away. TRC90's + ET is just a super-specialized gonzo version.

What about Konstantine, Titus, and that slow-you-down retrofit thingy (G-8?)? Does that offer enough speed control to take the Avenger out of the picture?

Or drop to speed 0 at medium range.

36 minutes ago, Maturin said:

What about Konstantine, Titus, and that slow-you-down retrofit thingy (G-8?)? Does that offer enough speed control to take the Avenger out of the picture?

25 minutes ago, TallGiraffe said:

Or drop to speed 0 at medium range.

None of those allow you to drop someone to speed 0. Only Konstantine allows you to speed ships up - which is what you really want. Slowing down the ISD allows it to keep it's front arc on you longer. Speeding it up forces it to fly right past you - doubly effective if you're going speed three in the other direction. Better yet, give it a Slicer Tool on it's way past so it doesn't have anything useful.

50 minutes ago, IronNerd said:

I agree that this would work really well. In fact, in our post tournament discussion I was theorizing that vette swarm is one of the better counters for Avenger/BT. BUT the point of my post is that I think Avenger/BT is bad for the game, and coming up with one counter doesn't mean that it's a fair and balanced tool.

I will agree it's not the greatest. When they revealed BT, the synergy with Avenger worried me considerably. Big ships are already struggling a bit compared to MSU and while this gives Imperials a go to big ship combo, it discourages Rebel large ships from hitting the board. Still, we'll see how this shakes out. I expect to see a lot more of Lando, that's for sure. If it's a problem, I have faith in FFG to address it.

26 minutes ago, TaeSWXW said:

None of those allow you to drop someone to speed 0. Only Konstantine allows you to speed ships up - which is what you really want. Slowing down the ISD allows it to keep it's front arc on you longer. Speeding it up forces it to fly right past you - doubly effective if you're going speed three in the other direction. Better yet, give it a Slicer Tool on it's way past so it doesn't have anything useful.

Thats not entirely accurate. The G8's allow you to dunk someone to a temporary speed 0 during their manuever.

33 minutes ago, Truthiness said:

I will agree it's not the greatest. When they revealed BT, the synergy with Avenger worried me considerably. Big ships are already struggling a bit compared to MSU and while this gives Imperials a go to big ship combo, it discourages Rebel large ships from hitting the board. Still, we'll see how this shakes out. I expect to see a lot more of Lando, that's for sure. If it's a problem, I have faith in FFG to address it.

Having won a 10 man event recently on the back of BT Avenger deleting (or threatening to delete) ships, I sort of concur. Double-arcing an ISD and erasing it in 1 round of shooting feels... weird. My last two opponents did actually do a very good job with maneuvering, though. Round two placed his Assault Frigate just a sliver out of front arc. Round three was using a Madine Liberty and was able to avoid front arc at black range.

Fear of that front arc forced them into my Target Scrambling Interdictor at close range, however, who helped kill the AF and almost took down the Liberty with some medium range side arc help from Avenger.

As someone pointed out earlier, it's looking like a Wave 2Demolisher, but a weaker Demolisher. It can do significant damage, but it can't go speed 4 or attack after moving. Not having first player makes it a lot harder to pull off against maneuverable opponents. But how maneuverable are non-ET MC80H1s? I haven't had a chance to test the Avenger against one of those, but I suspect it's not going to be hard to get a front arc close range shot off.

31 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

Thats not entirely accurate. The G8's allow you to dunk someone to a temporary speed 0 during their manuever.

Thanks for the correction. I could see that being pretty helpful in some situations.

I mean, honestly, as a virtually-full-time Rebel Player, I see it like this:


Close Range of an ISD-1 is Death.

Close Range of an ISD-1 Avenger with Boarding Troopers is Death times Death.

Death Squared is still Death.

I'm already doing everything I can as a Rebel Player to stay outside of Avengers Front Arc at Close Range at all Times...

The price of failure of that was Death.

Death doesn't really get any Deathier in that Scenario.

If anything, I like seeing that Someone's taken Avenger with Boarding Troopers.... It Means They Don't Have Gunnery Teams.

16 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Death doesn't really get any Deathier in that Scenario.

Except for your larger ships. I agree a close range shot from an ISD I is scary but the MC80, Vic, and ISD can normally take at least 1 shot like that. Now with BT, they just die, which I think is the point of this thread. If your opponent is using BT on a CR90 or a Raider, well, it likely would have died anyway.

Now Imps can take BT Avenger and Demo with a massive bid and have 2 ships capable of wiping another ship off the table with no response, which is the bigger issue. If you only play MSU, then Avenger isn't a terribly big deal. Like I said earlier, your ships just die outright to that front arc.

22 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

If anything, I like seeing that Someone's taken Avenger with Boarding Troopers.... It Means They Don't Have Gunnery Teams.

This this this this

High activation list's does highlight one of the reasons why activation advantage gets exploited .

In all most all Tournament games, the two most important question's is...
Who is first and who has the most activation's.
If one player has both, then they will most definitely win. And here is why.
If a player has both, then is is obvious that they will out "activate" the opponent and always have their most important ship go last/first. And there is nothing the opponent can do about this, no amount of maneuvering/setup/shooting/objectives or commands can stop someone from doing that. It is no longer a tactical choice in the game because no other choice is anywhere near as good as activating you're ship last, jumping into range. Going first, firing and then flying off.

1 minute ago, Undeadguy said:

Except for your larger ships. I agree a close range shot from an ISD I is scary but the MC80, Vic, and ISD can normally take at least 1 shot like that. Now with BT, they just die, which I think is the point of this thread. If your opponent is using BT on a CR90 or a Raider, well, it likely would have died anyway.

Now Imps can take BT Avenger and Demo with a massive bid and have 2 ships capable of wiping another ship off the table with no response, which is the bigger issue. If you only play MSU, then Avenger isn't a terribly big deal. Like I said earlier, your ships just die outright to that front arc.

In my playbook, the argument is "Just because you could take a close range hit doens't mean it was ever desirable or intentioned for you to do so."

Close Range of an ISD-I is Deaaaaath.

I play my whole game with that as the very concept... A Large Ship will only survive it if things go its way... Including you packing the Right upgrades and being undamaged to begin with...

So don't ever, ever risk it. Don't ever give it a goddamn chance to do a bunch of Damage to you. Ever.

The moment you think "I can take it", you're being Lando levels of Gambler, and that's too much for my tired old heart.... Y'lose Rustbuckets that way.