28 minutes ago, Lannes said:

Those commanders could be still useful on medium ships, a 5 distance range is quite big. But yes, the key it's I feel large ships are a bit disadvantaged with small ships because the point cost doesn't compensate the advantage in activations and deployment.

That assumes activations and deployments are all that matters in the game. Considering ISDs and MC80s can one shot several small based ships, that proves that hull needs to be taken into effect as well, as does not letting yourself get swarmed.

I'm willing to entertain a Leia/Tarkin reduction (to 35 tops), the QLT thing, and the Cluster Bombs thing. To everything else, especially Commander effect range dependent on Flag base size, hard pass.

Leia and Tarkin would need to be brought down to 32 to be viable since Thrawn does the same effect but better. Supposedly Leia was cheaper until someone complained during play testing. And ironically Sloane was more expensive but got cheaper.

1 minute ago, Undeadguy said:

Leia and Tarkin would need to be brought down to 32 to be viable since Thrawn does the same effect but better. Supposedly Leia was cheaper until someone complained during play testing. And ironically Sloane was more expensive but got cheaper.

Thrawns a different faction and he really doesn't do the same effect but better. Leia hyperspecialises her small ships, Thrawn wants large bases who want to do multiple things per turn.

Also I think Leia is already pretty viable, but that's neither here nor there. I'd certainly love her to be cheaper, but as I don't design the game I'm not going to complain about points costs of commanders.

3 minutes ago, geek19 said:

Thrawns a different faction and he really doesn't do the same effect but better. Leia hyperspecialises her small ships, Thrawn wants large bases who want to do multiple things per turn.

Also I think Leia is already pretty viable, but that's neither here nor there. I'd certainly love her to be cheaper, but as I don't design the game I'm not going to complain about points costs of commanders.

Well I disagree so OK.

1 minute ago, geek19 said:

Leia hyperspecialises her small ships, Thrawn wants large bases who want to do multiple things per turn.

Also I think Leia is already pretty viable, but that's neither here nor there.

I just started playing around with Leia, and she does feel pretty powerful on smalls. Single command especially. I used her to push squads off Yavaris and an AF with FCs (mostly as a practice fleet for a friend to beat) and she tore it up. I'm thinking this CC style (1 upgrade per ship) practice fleet may be a real contender for our local guys in regular play.

19 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Leia and Tarkin would need to be brought down to 32 to be viable since Thrawn does the same effect but better. Supposedly Leia was cheaper until someone complained during play testing. And ironically Sloane was more expensive but got cheaper.

I strongly disagree that Thrawn does the same effect but better. His effect can be better utilized by some ships (especially large ships with higher Squadron/Engineering values) than the extra tokens (especially with Leia's downside), but it's more limited. Being able to get consistent use from tokens hypothetically every turn is better than 3 locked-in-at-the-start-of-the-game dials. The issue is building a fleet that can support that. At the moment, Leia can do that. Tarkin is still struggling to outside of a Gozanti + bomber spam fleet.

Which isn't to say I wouldn't support some kind of change to cheapen some of the more expensive commanders a bit, just I don't agree that Thrawn is inherently superior to Leia or Tarkin.

19 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

I strongly disagree that Thrawn does the same effect but better. His effect can be better utilized by some ships (especially large ships with higher Squadron/Engineering values) than the extra tokens (especially with Leia's downside), but it's more limited. Being able to get consistent use from tokens hypothetically every turn is better than 3 locked-in-at-the-start-of-the-game dials. The issue is building a fleet that can support that. At the moment, Leia can do that. Tarkin is still struggling to outside of a Gozanti + bomber spam fleet.

Which isn't to say I wouldn't support some kind of change to cheapen some of the more expensive commanders a bit, just I don't agree that Thrawn is inherently superior to Leia or Tarkin.

Hit me up when Thrawn wins more tournaments than Leia and Tarkin combined. We can talk about how Thrawn is more powerful.

Guess we should pull a geek19 and don't discuss anything until we have data.

Redundant shields : At the end of each turn, you can renegerate AND move 1 shield to and from any hull zone of your choice.

Point defense reroute : While attacking squadrons at close-medium range, you can reroll once any results.

So, say I have a black/blue AS at close range and I get a blank/hit, I could reroll the blank...

32 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Hit me up when Thrawn wins more tournaments than Leia and Tarkin combined. We can talk about how Thrawn is more powerful.

Isn't this the equivalent of saying that if Konstantine somehow wins 2 regionals and every other commander in the game wins one that Konstantine is the best Admiral? Never mind the fact that Thrawn and Leia are in different factions....

5 minutes ago, geek19 said:

Isn't this the equivalent of saying that if Konstantine somehow wins 2 regionals and every other commander in the game wins one that Konstantine is the best Admiral? Never mind the fact that Thrawn and Leia are in different factions....

who is Konstantine?

The smear on Sato's windshield

On commanders:

I think Sato is largely a design botch. The basic problem is that he requires awful lot of working parts in a list in order to get him to work. You need both ships and squadrons, but they have to be the right ships and the right squadrons, and getting all of your squadrons cut off means you lose Sato benefits. Short of a major redesign into something else entirely, I'm not sure anything makes him more playable.

Tarkin/Garm: The token commanders. Part of their problem is the cost and availability of tokens has gotten much cheaper and easier. Comms net flotillas provide a useful activation for your other ships, while constantly spitting out tokens for just 2 points, and then you get some other commander's ability. I suspect that when they designed comms net, they were thinking that you already gave up 18 combat points, so why not have 2 points for the comms net. They didn't quite foresee how useful the activations would be, otherwise, perhaps that comms net should have been 4 or more points. Both commanders suffer from the race-to-bottom with activations, in that the small ships you need in order to make activations work don't hold tokens very well. And since most people token-up turn-1, while you gain the real effect of your first turn dial, you don't really gain the full token extent of your command. In wave-2, we generally saw Veteran Captain setting the value of a token at 3 points, which meant you needed 9+ tokens with Garm and 13+ with Tarkin. Although those numbers are not entirely outside the realm of possibility, especially if you design a fleet to slow-ball, not all of those tokens will be useful on a given turn and you can often get enough by taking a different commander and comms net. So in the end, I think it has less to do with cost of the commanders, but more the ease and cost of acquiring tokens that has helped eclipse them. That might be something we just have to accept.

Leia: I'd put her in a different category than the token commanders since she's tied to a dial, and with low command ships, it is much easier to adopt on the fly. Again, if you can exceed 13 meaningful activations per game (emphasis on meaningful), you're getting good value on the points.

I noticed a tendency throughout to knee-jerk to fairly extreme changes in answer. The standard rule of design is baby-steps. If you're going to tweak, you make as few and as minimally invasive changes as possible. A 10 point adjustment to the Interdictor cost dramatically and graphically changes the game, and may involve plenty of unforeseen consequences. One thing that all gaming companies accept is that you're going to get at least some of the cards wrong in the design process. That's alright. It is hard to foresee everything about the game when you design something. As long as there are enough other working parts in the game in order to create variety and challenge, then one doesn't have to go back and fix every unplayable card by making them more playable.

13 minutes ago, jamie nasmyth said:

The smear on Sato's windshield

Oh, then his ability should read :

If Konstantine dies by getting rammed, the ramming ship always gets destroyed even if it has all its hitpoints.

Lower the cost of the following titles:

Dominator

Redemption

Independence

8 minutes ago, Irokenics said:

Lower the cost of the following titles:

Dominator

Redemption

Independence

Honestly Independance has no place in the game right now. Just rework the title completely.

edit: Maybe something like: Squadrons activated can go up to speed 4. If they do, their attacks on targets (squadrons or ships) are considered obstructed.

So, that way B-Wings can't go all the way to mess everyone up with their super attacks. Still useful though, IMO. Anything that doesn't use 2 anti-ship won't want to use it.

@Baltanok Rikki would to see regional plus data... It would be good to reshare as I am a little shocked by this post as Rikki won our nationals and is part of one of the biggest uk communities. If we havent managed to share the regional data sufficiently that these guys had seen it, then who else isnt seeing it?

I think this is one major concern about Armada, its kind of hard still to get tournament data. Too bad we can't get it pinned.

5 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

Leia and Tarkin would need to be brought down to 32 to be viable since Thrawn does the same effect but better. Supposedly Leia was cheaper until someone complained during play testing. And ironically Sloane was more expensive but got cheaper.

That all just sounds insane.

Wow, there a lot of extreme changes suggested here. I guess I don't see too many problems with Armada, but that could just be my inexperience with tournament play talking. Currently, the only rule I think FFG might change down the line is how Relay works. Right now it seems far too flexible.

One thing I would like to point out is that if you're looking to alter elements of the game, tournament effectiveness isn't the only consideration. I know tournament results get discussed a lot around here, but out of the 10+ players in my Portland group, only 1 has ever played in a tournament. Everyone I know prefers to play Armada in campaign mode, and the game functions differently there.

For example, in my current CC campaign (that started at only 250 points) we had 1 player take Leia and she's been effective, especially when you're limited to only 1 upgrade per ship on turn 1. She definitely didn't feel overpriced while wrecking my fleet.

In my previous campaign (starting at 300 points), the Sato player's fleet struggled in the first 2 rounds but then became much stronger once it was over 400 points. Finally, with regards to the Interdictor, it was an invaluable asset to my team in campaign play – durable and exceptionally useful in both the Base Defense: Armed Station and Show of Force objectives.

My problem with the commanders is that if you take one of the expensive ones (Tarkin and leia especially) you are effectively paying twice - you are paying 10-18 points more than a competing commander and you are missing out on the cheaper commanders ability. Not to mention as has been pointed out, there are now plenty of ways to make sure your key ships have the right token when they need it.

And Leia has her silly restriction that her ships can't use stored tokens if they use her, which can really dumb down your options at crucial moments....

For example jejjerod is 23 points and has a really powerful ability that the expensive ones cant replicate. Even Motti - just by existing he is almost as good as if Tarkin did nothing but gave out engineering tokens for half the game.

Even if all the admirals cost the same flat rate you would still only take Tarkin or leia in a fleet built around them and even the it might not be a good as the same approach with Motti or Jerry or sloan. I think if they made Tarkin and Leia 30 points they would still not be anything like an auto pick. You would just see them a little bit more, which would be a good thing.

Yeah, reducing the expensive Commanders would be one change. Though this could also be helped if the fleet cost went from 400 to 500!

We don't get too fussed about flotillas, as we don't play competitively so we like to experiment. However, even then there are cards that we never use:

• Independence - thee worst title
• Redemption - way out of its league compared to the other two
• Dominator / Devastator - too expensive
• Cluster Bombs - wtf
• QLTs & PDR - both too weak
• Han Solo - too expensive, wasted opportunity
• TIE Phantom - great potential but terrible ability
• Heavy TTs - outclassed by X17s
• Adv Proj and X17s - please reverse the ruling
• Overload Pulse - too expensive
• Tagge - just eurgh
• Tarkin / Leia / Sato - too expensive

OP cards:

• Demo - still a game changer for 10 points
• Dengar - oh, how we hate Dengar Howlrunner combos
• Gunnery Teams - too cheap
• Motti - too cheap

I'd also like to see some of the Objectives reworked, as there are some we've never used. Or, at least change it so the objective that's picked by first player is a random one, as this might encourage some more unusual ones getting playtime!

Oh, and Leading Shots requiring to be exhausted to use.

Just now, Jambo75 said:

Oh, and Leading Shots requiring to be exhausted to use.

Ugh, no.