A thing I've noticed at tournys is that some lists has an all cast list of unique sqds.

And when you have meet the same cast for the fourth time, it gets a slightly boring. As a rebel player I like somewhat facing Sloan, as she kind of advocate the use of more non-unique Imp sqds, eventhough there is still a good portion of uniques present, its still not a 100% cast of uniques.

In CC campaign you have an indirect restriction, as Biggs, Luke or Vader can only be in one fleet, within a team.

So would a limitation on how many unique sqds in a fleet you can have, help push more non-uniques in the forefront for tourny play and more variation in sqd composition?

Say max 1/2 or 1/3 of your sqds can be uniques?

I know some of you will react strongly against this, but I would just want to know your thoughts of the above, just to see how many agree, disagree or partly agree/disagree with what Im suggesting.

FYI: I expect those who is very competitive players at tourneys, would object the most, since they might loose some of their favorite sqd compositions, so please point out and mock me, if i'm wrong in my prediction

I feel like the balancing was done by point cost.

I could definitely see how you could become tired of facing the same aces time after time, but like Madaghmire stated it comes at a cost. You pay for those defense tokens and special abilities and that in and of itself causes most people to not load up on them. I'm not an super competitive player, only ever played 2 tournaments, but I have no problem with facing off against a ton of aces. They are a pain, especially the ones with scatter tokens, but I like the uniqueness and variety they bring to the game.

I can't speak for everyone, but I imagine it's more of a bang-for-your-buck situation, where 100 points worth of aces may simply do more work over the course of a game than 100 points of generics. I know that's true for me, and it also opens up my activation capability for those squadrons. For example, if I'm taking a pair of Gozantis to push squadrons, I'm probably not taking more than 6. At that stage, 6 Fighters or Interceptors aren't going to do much by themselves beyond cause a brief nuisance, but 6 unique Fighters and Interceptors definitely could. Suddenly the relatively fragile 3hp frame is augmented with counters, abilities, and defence tokens.

However, if your capable of pushing larger numbers of squadrons, things change. It's an economy of scale. 6 Fighters may not do the job of 6 unique Fighters, but 12 might. The kicker is: can you activate them? If you can, chances are you're already building your fleet around the concept of attacking with squadrons rather than a squadron screen. In that case, numbers make sense. However, if you only intend to run a screen for your bigger ships, or run something as insurance against specific squadron styles, unique are going to offer better value for investment.

This is why Kallus exists, he rides a Quasar II and he carries ruthless strategists with him everywhere.

sometimes however he takes the Kallusmobile which is a raider I with ordnance experts and flechette torpedos, when he really wants to be horrible.

1 hour ago, Madaghmire said:

I feel like the balancing was done by point cost.

Is it though? When picking an ace is such a no brainer vs the non ace there is reason to question the balancing. Just as having rhymer was an auto include before the nerf. Imo the tokens are undervalued for the fact that they can double or triple a squad longevity. And I haven't even started talking about the special effects.

Imo limiting to 4 aces per list would force people to be more creative in their lists Building.

16 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

Is it though? When picking an ace is such a no brainer vs the non ace there is reason to question the balancing. Just as having rhymer was an auto include before the nerf. Imo the tokens are undervalued for the fact that they can double or triple a squad longevity. And I haven't even started talking about the special effects.

Imo limiting to 4 aces per list would force people to be more creative in their lists Building.

I appreciate what you're saying but I disagree.

By and large, I think aces are appropriately costed. I'll certainly concede that there are specific aces that present too much value, but there are also several whose costs make then extremely difficult to shoehorn in despite powerful effects.

I don't know who undervalues tokens. I mean, if people were undervaluing tokens we probably don't have this thread. **** look at that sloane debate regarding how her effect plays in the squadron game.

Special effects are too case by case for this discussion, so I applaud your choice to not address them.

In the end though, I feel the proposal fails on balance and its greatest strength is on the nebulous grounds of personal preference. So by all means, run such an ace limit as a house rule or as a fleet patrol if theres support for it in your local community, but I don't want to see this come anywhere near my rule book.

I think the big reason you see aces is Squadron Commands in general. You can only move so many squads, most lists I have seen can move all their squads every round, or very close to, opposed to taking all generics (at least as imps) and moving 1/2 of the in a round, watching them die, and moving the 2nd half later. Yes I can take 16 ties, but I can't really move them easily. So it is a perceived efficiency thing I think, less points 'sitting doing nothing'.

I think it is also a local meta thing, in my local area Rimmer has never been used much at all, I think I can count on one hand with fingers left how many times he has hit the table. The only "Ace" that right now is seeing lots of use is Green Squadron with both Bey and Tyco to a lesser amount for the Rebels, and the Empire is mostly running generics. Now is it possible that my local meta is the one that is out of step with all the rest? Yes, very possible, but just saying I think there could be lots of areas that are not all the same for what is the go to list.

4 hours ago, Dr alex said:

This is why Kallus exists, he rides a Quasar II and he carries ruthless strategists with him everywhere.

sometimes however he takes the Kallusmobile which is a raider I with ordnance experts and flechette torpedos, when he really wants to be horrible.

Sometimes he takes the ISD-GT-LS out. Or the Demo-II.

My local meta is all over the map in every category. So we see Aceballs, generic swarms, and in between.

Recently, I've been slowly convincing the Sloane players that ALL generics is not the best screen. On the opposite end, I have a go-to Rebel screen that is just 5 aces

I feel like you question (to the OP) is a thematic one. What does too much mean? I am have been playing around with very high numbers of fighters in my imperial lists ever since Sloane came out, and I quickly came to the conclusion that the names ones, specifically the pilots with defense tokens are really good, IMO a better expenditure of points. So I have lots and lots of named Imperial Pilots in my fighter heavy fleets.

But one person may look at my list and think, wow, I see all my favorite Imperial Pilots here. That looks cool.

While another person may look at and think, TIEs are supposed to be be fielded in huge nameless swarms.

But neither person is right or wrong, its just a matter of taste.

I don't think you can make a meta argument against all the named pilots being used, because there are just so many good named pilots. Just because we are using a lot of named pilots doesn't mean they are the same named pilots over and over again.

19 hours ago, Madaghmire said:

I feel like the balancing was done by point cost.

I think that was the intention, but I find that in Armada, as in most games, getting the unique keyword gives you a bit of a discount because you'll only be fielding one of it.

I'm torn on the subject of unique squadrons. I think the rebels work really well as a rag-tag group of characters and the idea of seeing Biggs, Luke, Wedge, etc on the table is awesome. For the imperials, I prefer to see nameless swarms with maybe one or two powerful pilots in the mix.

20 hours ago, Sybreed said:

Is it though? When picking an ace is such a no brainer vs the non ace there is reason to question the balancing. Just as having rhymer was an auto include before the nerf. Imo the tokens are undervalued for the fact that they can double or triple a squad longevity. And I haven't even started talking about the special effects.

Imo limiting to 4 aces per list would force people to be more creative in their lists Building.

I feel this is only true in the case of the Rogues and Villians and potentially the Reb/Imp2 packs. It really comes done to the aces. Synergy aces like jann or howlrunner are just plain good. there are some super good dogfighting aces like wedge or ig-2000 but they aren't auto include.

Also as people said its points. you can take 6 aces at 134 pts or something like 16 TIE Fighters. As with everything its meta dependant. Ace vs Ace is pretty fine and yes one on one an ace will beat a generic but really can it beat enough generics to earn its points back?

Its a problem when you have SO many cheap unique squadrons, specially in the side of the Imperials. Making use of an unique squadrons should be something to consider, you have to pay for its skills, in the imps side this premise its just non existent.

1 hour ago, xerpo said:

Its a problem when you have SO many cheap unique squadrons, specially in the side of the Imperials. Making use of an unique squadrons should be something to consider, you have to pay for its skills, in the imps side this premise its just non existent.

I think Imperial Aces are pretty strong right now. I don't think they are a problem. I could be wrong, but so far early returns on tournament results seem to support my assessment. Wait and see, IMO.

Yes.

Without question.

I hate when I see pure heroes. A scattering of heroes among the grunts is far better.

i tend to run 1 to 3 named pilots and then 5 to 10 generics. i try to build lists with an idea in mind, then toss in some support for it. I "wish" i had some inspiration for bomber lists beyond xwings but i just don't love ywings or tie bombers.

6 hours ago, xerpo said:

Its a problem when you have SO many cheap unique squadrons, specially in the side of the Imperials. Making use of an unique squadrons should be something to consider, you have to pay for its skills, in the imps side this premise its just non existent.

You do have to pay for their skills. That's why Howlrunner is twice the cost of a base TIE fighter, for example. Rhymer is just shy of twice the cost of a base bomber, etc etc.

6 hours ago, xerpo said:

Its a problem when you have SO many cheap unique squadrons, specially in the side of the Imperials. Making use of an unique squadrons should be something to consider, you have to pay for its skills, in the imps side this premise its just non existent.

I disagree, Howlrunner may seem cheap at 16 points, but she is literally twice as much as the standard TIE. She may have a scatter and a brace, but she also only has 3 hits after that. Sometimes she dies really fast. I don't know if you have read anything @MajorJuggler has said about the mathematical fundamentals of point system, but being twice as many points is sort of like being 4 times better, because 2 TIEs will have twice the damage output and twice the damage resistance as one TIE.

The Empire has very few squadrons with more than one anti-ship dice. The only way to put more damage on ships is simply buy more fighters. If you have too many Aces your ability to do damage to ships will suffer (at least for the Empire)

That doesn't mean that the Imperial Aces aren't good, I am just saying that they are reasons to want to take generics too.

27 minutes ago, Formynder4 said:

You do have to pay for their skills. That's why Howlrunner is twice the cost of a base TIE fighter, for example. Rhymer is just shy of twice the cost of a base bomber, etc etc.

Please fit Velen Rudor (in example) in your maths.

14 minutes ago, Hrathen said:

I disagree, Howlrunner may seem cheap at 16 points, but she is literally twice as much as the standard TIE. She may have a scatter and a brace, but she also only has 3 hits after that. Sometimes she dies really fast. I don't know if you have read anything @MajorJuggler has said about the mathematical fundamentals of point system, but being twice as many points is sort of like being 4 times better, because 2 TIEs will have twice the damage output and twice the damage resistance as one TIE.

The Empire has very few squadrons with more than one anti-ship dice. The only way to put more damage on ships is simply buy more fighters. If you have too many Aces your ability to do damage to ships will suffer (at least for the Empire)

That doesn't mean that the Imperial Aces aren't good, I am just saying that they are reasons to want to take generics too.

The problem is not only HR, is the big amount of aces below the 17 points or below -in comparison to the rebels being in their 19 points or above-.

Having so many cheap aces allows you to fit only aces more easily, they also synergize with each other in ways that fitting regular ties is just not worth. The OP was making a point about seeing only aces in the table top. Im giving a possible answer.

Yes, but most of the Imp aces work best when they can buff regular units, like Howlrunner with swarm, or Soontir with escort units. Imps also have more aces that are over the 20pt mark than rebels do.

Valen Rudor is 13 pts compared to 8, and that puts him about where he should be, halfway between 1 TIE and 2. 3 blacks is more consistant, but not necessarily more damage than 6 blues.

1 hour ago, xerpo said:

Please fit Velen Rudor (in example) in your maths.

The problem is not only HR, is the big amount of aces below the 17 points or below -in comparison to the rebels being in their 19 points or above-.

Having so many cheap aces allows you to fit only aces more easily, they also synergize with each other in ways that fitting regular ties is just not worth. The OP was making a point about seeing only aces in the table top. Im giving a possible answer.

I mean, hes cool, but hes not double your points cool. Hes 50% more damaging at first glance, and hes costing 50% more. So youd think his abilities and his tokens were just free and hes way undercosted, right?

Except thats not the end of it. His tokens dont come into effect until every other fighter nearby has been killed, which means he cant tank for his generic- or even non-generic- team mates. His dice are also all black, so he cant go toe to toe with other aces because he has no way to bring in a accuracy to shut down their scatter token. So in a game where rebel aces are plentiful and iconic hes great at chewing through generics.

And while it may feel weird that rebel aces are more expensive than imperial aces at first glance, it really makes perfect sense- rebel fighters also cost more than imperial fighters, and are generally more flexible in their role and far more forgiving of your squadron composition. Their aces reflect this. The only truely cheap rebel fighter is the Z-95, and his quite powerful ability still leaves him at only 14 squadron points.

This is the silliest thread since:

4 hours ago, Grey Mage said:

I mean, hes cool, but hes not double your points cool. Hes 50% more damaging at first glance, and hes costing 50% more. So youd think his abilities and his tokens were just free and hes way undercosted, right?

Except thats not the end of it. His tokens dont come into effect until every other fighter nearby has been killed, which means he cant tank for his generic- or even non-generic- team mates. His dice are also all black, so he cant go toe to toe with other aces because he has no way to bring in a accuracy to shut down their scatter token. So in a game where rebel aces are plentiful and iconic hes great at chewing through generics.

And while it may feel weird that rebel aces are more expensive than imperial aces at first glance, it really makes perfect sense- rebel fighters also cost more than imperial fighters, and are generally more flexible in their role and far more forgiving of your squadron composition. Their aces reflect this. The only truely cheap rebel fighter is the Z-95, and his quite powerful ability still leaves him at only 14 squadron points.

I am not sure that I would say that the Empire has lots of cheap aces, now I know this is not scientific or anything, but went through the fighters that I have, and I have 125 fighter bases with a total point cost of 1674 points, with the TIE Fighter being the most represented. The average point cost is just over 13 points each (13.392), now compared to the rebels that I do not have the same numbers but they come in at an average of over 14 points each (1055 total points, 72 fighters, average of 14.653) and I have only two of their cheap fighters (the Z-95). So like I said this is not scientific or anything, but it looks to me like the Empire's fighters overall are not that much cheaper, and if I had the same number of Z-95's that I do TIE Fighters they may even have a higher average cost.

20 TIE Fighter [8pts]
Black Squadron [9pts]
Mauler Mithel [15pts]
Valen Rudor [13pts]
Howlrunnder [16pts]
13 TIE Interceptor [11pts]
Saber Squadron [12pts]
Soontir Fel [18pts]
Ciena Ree [17pts]
13 TIE Advanced [12pts]
Tempest Squadron [13pts]
Zertik Strom [15pts]
Darth Vader [21pts]
7 TIE Phantom [14pts]
Whisper [20pts]
13 TIE Bomber [9pts]
Gamma Squadron [10pts]
Major Rhymer [16pts]
Captain Jonus [16pts]
7 TIE Defender [16pts]
Maarek Stele [21pts]
7 Lambda Shuttle [15pts]
Colonel Jendon [20pts]
7 VT-49 [22pts]
Morna Kee [27pts]
5 Aggressor [16pts]
IG-88 [21pts]
4 YV-666 [15pts]
Bossk [23pts]
4 JumpMaster [12pts]
Dengar [20pts]
4 Firespray [18pts]
Boba Fett [26pts]

1 Z-95 [7pts]
Lieutenant Blount [14pts]
5 A-wing [11pts]
Green Squadron [12pts]
Shara Bey [17pts]
Tycho Celchu [16pts]
5 B-Wing [14pts]
Dagger Squadron [15pts]
Ten Numb [19pts]
Keyan Farlander [20pts]
1 E-Wing [15pts]
Corran Horn [22pts]
16 X-wing [13pts]
Rogue Squadron [14pts]
Biggs Darklighter [19pts]
Wedge Antilles [19pts]
Luke Skywalker [20pts]
5 Y-Wing [10pts]
Gold Squadron [12pts]
Nora Wexley [17pts]
Dutch Vander [16pts]
4 Scrrg H-6 Bomber [16pts]
Nym [21pts]
1 Lancer Pursuit Craft [15pts]
Ketsu Onyo [22pts]
4 YT-2400 [16pts]
Dash Rendar [24pts]
4 HWK-290 [12pts]
Jan Ors [19pts]
1 VCX-100 Freighter [15pts]
Hera Syndulla [28pts]
4 YT-1300 [13pts]
Han Solo [26pts]