I was playing an absolute travesty of a game the other day at league night: 8 SW90B's against another guy's Mothma swarm. I got a few remarks both from my opponent and from an observer about my using overlapping to end up in unexpected positions. On a couple of different activations, my opponent was quite sure that I would be stuck ramming my own ships, when the escape routes were pretty clear to me, and it occurred to me that in all of these cases, the path involved ramming to back off to a safe spot or a good shot. And it was certainly not the case that my opponent was a bad player: we were both playing weird fleets so we both made mistakes, but on the whole his play was great, including his navigation.

So that got me to thinking about it: I think I actually end up using ramming in this way at least once in a majority of my games, probably 2/3 or 3/4 of them. So much so that I don't really think of it as a particularly innovative or surprising tactic, any more than, say, an inside turn or adjusting my speed with a nav token to get a better position. As a result, I haven't really paid much attention to is how much other people do it, so I'm curious: is this frequency a unique artifact of my relatively aggressive approach to the game in general, or was it an anomaly that this guy just hadn't seen a lot of overlap navigation?

I could certainly see this being more characteristic of a torpedo boat sort of playstyle. Anecdotally, it seems that I often use overlapping to hold a double arc on a quarry for two turns in a row without having to navigate to slow, or to hop over the target while still pulling a tight turn at the end, or to force overlaps offensively to hold the target in place; but a lot of that is an artifact of the fact that I often play ships with very tight tolerances in firing arcs (MC30s, CR90Bs, even ISD1s to a certain extent).

So, the question is, do you use overlapping very frequently as a navigational tool? Or do you see your opponents do it frequently? Or have you noticed that this is more frequently used in certain types of fleets?

11 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

I was playing an absolute travesty of a game the other day at league night: 8 SW90B's against another guy's Mothma swarm. I got a few remarks both from my opponent and from an observer about my using overlapping to end up in unexpected positions. On a couple of different activations, my opponent was quite sure that I would be stuck ramming my own ships, when the escape routes were pretty clear to me, and it occurred to me that in all of these cases, the path involved ramming to back off to a safe spot or a good shot. And it was certainly not the case that my opponent was a bad player: we were both playing weird fleets so we both made mistakes, but on the whole his play was great, including his navigation.

So that got me to thinking about it: I think I actually end up using ramming in this way at least once in a majority of my games, probably 2/3 or 3/4 of them. So much so that I don't really think of it as a particularly innovative or surprising tactic, any more than, say, an inside turn or adjusting my speed with a nav token to get a better position. As a result, I haven't really paid much attention to is how much other people do it, so I'm curious: is this frequency a unique artifact of my relatively aggressive approach to the game in general, or was it an anomaly that this guy just hadn't seen a lot of overlap navigation?

I could certainly see this being more characteristic of a torpedo boat sort of playstyle. Anecdotally, it seems that I often use overlapping to hold a double arc on a quarry for two turns in a row without having to navigate to slow, or to hop over the target while still pulling a tight turn at the end, or to force overlaps offensively to hold the target in place; but a lot of that is an artifact of the fact that I often play ships with very tight tolerances in firing arcs (MC30s, CR90Bs, even ISD1s to a certain extent).

So, the question is, do you use overlapping very frequently as a navigational tool? Or do you see your opponents do it frequently? Or have you noticed that this is more frequently used in certain types of fleets?

Well you know me! I feel I invented overlapping to jockey for better position. I remember during a SC when my opponent thought he would get this nice juicy ISD front arc shot on my Yavaris. Much to his dismay when I instead rammed yavaris behind a GR-75 instead and kept yavaris pretty much right where I wanted it. That made the difference between him winning by a 7-4 to me winning 10-1. That tournament I had three 10-1’s in each round. Probably each round I must have committed an overlap or two. Lots of my opponents just don’t expect it and it throws practically everything off for them.

Lol! @ripper998 probably can vouch for overlapping my own ships!

I love using it to keep my guns on target or to put my ship where it's safest. I don't manage to work it into every game though. I have had to produce the rule book on several occasions to show that it's legal. I've rarely had it done to me and most of those, I think were incidental.

I certainly use ramming and overlap positions to maintain my aggressive plays. I don't use it every game because Glads and Raiders have low hull and can't afford a ram. I did use it on Sunday to trap an MC80 with Insidious and keep a double arc by doing an inside overlap ram.

I think the technique is under appreciated. This reminds me of the speed 3 JJ ISD ram trick that let's you turn 90 degrees without moving the front of your base very far forward.

I use it a lot and my opponents reactions have been everything from"nice move" to "that's cheating!"

My opponent Dan used ramming defensively in this example below to save his ISD. He basically flies Demolisher in front of it to block it from flying off the board.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVWtd1gDzAU

Would you guys help me out with the actual rule details here, please? I figure I am not using the overlap,because I am somewhat uncertain.

Say I overlap a ship with my speed 3 maneuver, am I allowed to perform a different speed 3 maneuver overlapping the tool? Is the resulting reduced speed 2 maneuver the one that allows overlapping the tool?

Why does anyone bring transports if not so they can ram them to keep in position? That can't be just me?

I played a lot of ISD + 3 gozanti's and rammed my own gozantis intentionally minimum once a game if not more. Motti Gozantis make for excellent navigation tools!

19 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

Why does anyone bring transports if not so they can ram them to keep in position? That can't be just me?

I played a lot of ISD + 3 gozanti's and rammed my own gozantis intentionally minimum once a game if not more. Motti Gozantis make for excellent navigation tools!

It is like getting the benefits of Jerjerrod and Motti in one list!!?

Ramming for positional reasons is effectively mandatory for anybody running a fleet of knife-fighters and it's a good thing to know about overall for anyone, really. I wrote the article on ramming for the blog and it's one of those elements of the game that seems foundational to me but I occasionally encounter people who don't understand it, much less utilize it.

1 hour ago, Snipafist said:

Ramming for positional reasons is effectively mandatory for anybody running a fleet of knife-fighters and it's a good thing to know about overall for anyone, really. I wrote the article on ramming for the blog and it's one of those elements of the game that seems foundational to me but I occasionally encounter people who don't understand it, much less utilize it.

Also the people who don't like ramming, which, whyyyyyyyy?

1 hour ago, Snipafist said:

Ramming for positional reasons is effectively mandatory for anybody running a fleet of knife-fighters and it's a good thing to know about overall for anyone, really. I wrote the article on ramming for the blog and it's one of those elements of the game that seems foundational to me but I occasionally encounter people who don't understand it, much less utilize it.

Ah, nice. I try to keep on top of you guys' stuff, but your output rate is just so precipitous...

Nevermind, I totally read this article. I guess I just forgot about it. Maybe you guys subconsciously prompted me to be thinking about this...

Happens all the time! In my top 4 game at worlds, it turned defeat into victory. I think my favorite ramming for position moment was when I used a Jerjerod speed 4 raider to basically go from behind my ISD, to in front of it just a little off the portside. This allowed the ISD to do the JerJerrod speed three inside turn with a ram of the raider to back up to joint one. Not only did it keep my 4 hull ISD from flying off the board the next turn, but it kept it at medium range of the unactivated MC30 torpedo frigate lying in wait...

12 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

Good article. I try to keep on top of you guys' stuff, but your output rate is just so precipitous...

I'll say thanks for both @Snipafist and me. We like talking about the game, so we keep writing!

To me, this makes perfect sense and seems natural and normal, but I don't tend to see it common until you hit the top 20% of players, so obviously a lot of people aren't thinking about the possibilities when they're at the game board.

At the risk of ego-bruising implications of @Vergilius's comment, I know I rarely do this. That said, when I do it, I try to arrange ramming the bad guy, particularly when it helps set up my next shot (mostly first player thing, but once or twice as second player a fork has paid off). I'll also note however I run much more standoff-oriented and big ship oriented fleets than many folks commenting here. Every now and again I'll ram the sterns of my Star Destroyers or MC80s to keep my flotillas out of harm's way, but I know I'm not good enough to estimate board positions more than a round or so out, so I prefer to keep the space clear for emergency maneuvers. By contrast what I've done in the same vein is using those second line ships to form boxes the attacker can't escape. E.g. Putting that flotilla just far enough forward on a Star Destroyer's beam Admonition has to land eating a double arc.

When I ran my Sloane fleet in preparation for Nationals, I would " occasion set up 1-2 flotillas so that I could bump them to keep the ISD in a more favorable position. Nothing fancy, but rather effective.

During the actual Nationals tournament there were no situations where it might be beneficial.

11 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

I certainly use ramming and overlap positions to maintain my aggressive plays. I don't use it every game because Glads and Raiders have low hull and can't afford a ram. I did use it on Sunday to trap an MC80 with Insidious and keep a double arc by doing an inside overlap ram.

I think the technique is under appreciated. This reminds me of the speed 3 JJ ISD ram trick that let's you turn 90 degrees without moving the front of your base very far forward.

Yeah ive used the jj isd trick a lot. Great fun.

On 10/23/2017 at 5:48 PM, letlhalerwa said:

Would you guys help me out with the actual rule details here, please? I figure I am not using the overlap,because I am somewhat uncertain.

Say I overlap a ship with my speed 3 maneuver, am I allowed to perform a different speed 3 maneuver overlapping the tool? Is the resulting reduced speed 2 maneuver the one that allows overlapping the tool?

Thus seems to have been overlooked, but when you overlap you don't make a new maneuver, you slide back to the previous notch on the tool. If you overlap the tool there then it is legal (the only time that it is).

Did someone call me? All I heard was the word "ram."

12 minutes ago, Truthiness said:

Did someone call me? All I heard was the word "ram."

We were referring to Ram Jam and their hit single "Black Betty."

My crowning ram glory came way back in wave 1 when I rammed my opponents Assult Frigate to death wit 2 VSDs in turn 4, effectively trapping his two trailing Neb Bs int flying into their front arcs, when he would have snuck them behind me if I had continued at speed 2.

I will ram for position about 1 in every 4 games. The rest of the time it's just for damage and fun.

12 hours ago, Formynder4 said:

Thus seems to have been overlooked, but when you overlap you don't make a new maneuver, you slide back to the previous notch on the tool. If you overlap the tool there then it is legal (the only time that it is).

Oh wow. We have been playing this all wrong for the last two years...!

2 hours ago, letlhalerwa said:

Oh wow. We have been playing this all wrong for the last two years...!

It's okay - when @geek19 and I were still new to Armada we thought redirect tokens let you redirect 1 point of damage. We didn't understand what the big fuss was from XI7s. We were... not doing that one right.

If you want to read lots about overlapping, I note how moving back works in the ramming article.

2 hours ago, letlhalerwa said:

Oh wow. We have been playing this all wrong for the last two years...!

It’s alright. We had a new player show up a while back. He and his buddy had been playing it where ramming reduced your speed to whatever the last open notch was. So an ISD that rammed an MC80 without being able to move at all was then at speed 0. He thought ramming was broken.

I was set set for a long time thinking you couldn’t roll dice more than once even though the rules very clearly said you could.