20 hours ago, >kkj said:

First off: The Raider is the best dedicated flak-boat in the game. Thats a undeniable fact.

Not fact. I'll have to disagree, and claim that the Raider is just average in the anti-squad role when competing against seasoned players. It's EXTREMELY difficult to get it into a position where it can fire at squads before it dies from ship or squad fire, again, against good players.

For Raider anti-squad, it's generally accepted that you need to be the first player, have activation advantage, AND have a way of locking down enemy squadrons. Without all of these, a veteran player will either just kill the Raider with a ship surrounded by squads, or simply use the squads to kill the raider, attacking the Raider during the squadron phase when the Raider movies into position to fire next turn. Positioning Raiders for anti-squad fire, without getting them killed in the process, is one of the most difficult things to do in this game.

Even taking cost into account, a Demolisher Gladiator II is much better at killing squads than even the most decked out Raider, and a G2 Demolsiher is also very dangerous vs ships. A Gladiator 2 with Demolisher is, by far, the best flak ship in the game, especially when considering point cost. Next in line is any flotilla.

15 minutes ago, Thraug said:

Not fact. I'll have to disagree, and claim that the Raider is just average in the anti-squad role when competing against seasoned players. It's EXTREMELY difficult to get it into a position where it can fire at squads before it dies from ship or squad fire, again, against good players.

For Raider anti-squad, it's generally accepted that you need to be the first player, have activation advantage, AND have a way of locking down enemy squadrons. Without all of these, a veteran player will either just kill the Raider with a ship surrounded by squads, or simply use the squads to kill the raider, attacking the Raider during the squadron phase when the Raider movies into position to fire next turn. Positioning Raiders for anti-squad fire, without getting them killed in the process, is one of the most difficult things to do in this game.

Even taking cost into account, a Demolisher Gladiator II is much better at killing squads than even the most decked out Raider, and a G2 Demolsiher is also very dangerous vs ships. A Gladiator 2 with Demolisher is, by far, the best flak ship in the game, especially when considering point cost. Next in line is any flotilla.

So, in the instance of fair argument - how do the Titles of the Raider effect its rating, since the solution is a titled ship and thus unique?

Because Impetuous can put an obscene amount of dice onto a named squad of choice, all rerollable, if kitted, for example.

But mostly, I mean, on the basis of points and repeatable(no titles) our choices are:

Glad II

Raider

2x Flotillas

Compared on those basis alone, it’s an interesting comparison.

Glad II gives you single activation range, but you pay for it on raw points. 2x Flots is either Range or saturation for more or less points, but is two activations for weight of fire, and has to be coordinated to put all dice on target.

That leaves the Raider as a single activation double dice useful boat, with either double black saturation or blue black range compromise.

On THOSE terms, I can see the argument being made on it being the “best”, even if I’m not 100% convinced on it myself... ?

So many variables to declare when comparisons and “best” ratings are thrown.

Can we get some more scientific thought on those discussions please?

1 hour ago, TallGiraffe said:

Wanna vote for the "Worst" Ship in armada? Go here!

http://www.strawpoll.me/14478686

I'm going to have to think about this one for a bit. Since I only play Empire, any vote for a Rebel ship might mean that I vote the most effective Rebel ship as the 'worst', because I hate it, because I hate facing it. (For whatever reason, the MC-30 is what is coming to mind on that, though I don't face it very often.) Since the poll is trying to capture worst-as-least-effective, my answer would skew the data in an unfair way. Also, I don't have experience with Rebel ships as a user, and so trying to identify the worst-as-least-effective wouldn't be very informed, because I simply don't know the heartaches of trying to effectively build a top-notch Rebel list.

Regarding Empire ships, I really do love them all. Regarding the Interdictor, which is currently winning (as in: losing) the poll with three out of seven votes, and none of the other votes for the same ship, I think it is sad. Of course the Interdictor would not perform well as a combat vessel in Armada; it's not a combat vessel, it's a strategic vessel, in the same way as you wouldn't expect a B-17 bomber to do well in a WWII dogfighting game.

The thing is, because I love thinking in terms of the overarching strategy, which is only modeled in the Corellian Conflict, I rather like the Interdictor. It is (or should be) such a meaningful part of the game. I also think that the Corellian Conflict did not make the Interdictor significant enough. For my part, no ships should have been able to make a Hyperspace retreat while an Interdictor (or 'an enemy ship with an Experimental Retrofit upgrade icon') is on the board. While Range 5 is as long as it gets in terms of measurement, it feels much shorter than it should be.

Anyway, because this is a combat game, and I do think that the Interdictor is overcosted for its value - those Experimental Retrofits just don't seem to do the trick. They seem either too easy for an opponent to work around during setup, or they seem way too conditional during combat. Why on earth is it so expensive?

Okay... so, thought process done. I love the Interdictor for non-game reasons, but as it is, I think it is the "worst" ship in Armada, even though I love it.

I almost voted for the Pelta, because I think the only reason to take one is for the fleet command slot, but I voted for the Interdictor instead because I play Empire more often. The Pelta you can take into general combat situations but the Interdictor is very temperamental depending on the scenario the ship plays in. Typically I'd recommend an INT if you're playing to your objectives, because it does things like drag stations closer to you and isolate ships you want to destroy. But it's not a ship that will stand long or do much when it's against certain lists. Because it's so temperamental I rate it as low as I do.

6 hours ago, Mikael Hasselstein said:

I'm going to have to think about this one for a bit. Since I only play Empire, any vote for a Rebel ship might mean that I vote the most effective Rebel ship as the 'worst', because I hate it, because I hate facing it. (For whatever reason, the MC-30 is what is coming to mind on that, though I don't face it very often.) Since the poll is trying to capture worst-as-least-effective, my answer would skew the data in an unfair way. Also, I don't have experience with Rebel ships as a user, and so trying to identify the worst-as-least-effective wouldn't be very informed, because I simply don't know the heartaches of trying to effectively build a top-notch Rebel list.

Regarding Empire ships, I really do love them all. Regarding the Interdictor, which is currently winning (as in: losing) the poll with three out of seven votes, and none of the other votes for the same ship, I think it is sad. Of course the Interdictor would not perform well as a combat vessel in Armada; it's not a combat vessel, it's a strategic vessel, in the same way as you wouldn't expect a B-17 bomber to do well in a WWII dogfighting game.

The thing is, because I love thinking in terms of the overarching strategy, which is only modeled in the Corellian Conflict, I rather like the Interdictor. It is (or should be) such a meaningful part of the game. I also think that the Corellian Conflict did not make the Interdictor significant enough. For my part, no ships should have been able to make a Hyperspace retreat while an Interdictor (or 'an enemy ship with an Experimental Retrofit upgrade icon') is on the board. While Range 5 is as long as it gets in terms of measurement, it feels much shorter than it should be.

Anyway, because this is a combat game, and I do think that the Interdictor is overcosted for its value - those Experimental Retrofits just don't seem to do the trick. They seem either too easy for an opponent to work around during setup, or they seem way too conditional during combat. Why on earth is it so expensive?

Okay... so, thought process done. I love the Interdictor for non-game reasons, but as it is, I think it is the "worst" ship in Armada, even though I love it.

In a lot of ways I am there with you, I do not love the Interdictor but do agree that for this game it is over costed, for a more campaign driven game it would be worth its weight in gold. Using your B-17 example yes it would suck in a dogfighting game, especially if it cost about 1/3 of the points that you had to play with. But switch the game to a more strategic one and now it has much more value. I have found that the Interdictor can be fun if you are just playing for fun, but my local group has not found that it is a effective ship if you want a well built fleet, but maybe that is just us.

12 hours ago, TallGiraffe said:

Wanna vote for the "Worst" Ship in armada? Go here!

http://www.strawpoll.me/14478686

I voted the AF2. Not because of playability, but because it is so ugly that I would rather play at 60 down than field it.

This is a really good guide. Thank you for sharing.

I have had two Raiders since they came out and while I am lacking a couple of the most recent waves and haven't played in a while, I found them to be alright escort ships. You just can't expect them to fight out of their weight class. Ever. They are halfway decent for assisting other ships, though, and once I can get ahold of things like External Racks, I will probably find use for them.

12 hours ago, CDAT said:

In a lot of ways I am there with you, I do not love the Interdictor but do agree that for this game it is over costed, for a more campaign driven game it would be worth its weight in gold. Using your B-17 example yes it would suck in a dogfighting game, especially if it cost about 1/3 of the points that you had to play with. But switch the game to a more strategic one and now it has much more value. I have found that the Interdictor can be fun if you are just playing for fun, but my local group has not found that it is a effective ship if you want a well built fleet, but maybe that is just us.

What do you mean to 'switch the game to a more strategic one' - do you mean something like the Corellian Conflict, or something homebrew? If so, care to offer examples? I'm fishing around for ideas to 'flesh out' CC for a fuller campaign/strategic/operational-level experience.

12 hours ago, Mikael Hasselstein said:

What do you mean to 'switch the game to a more strategic one' - do you mean something like the Corellian Conflict, or something homebrew? If so, care to offer examples? I'm fishing around for ideas to 'flesh out' CC for a fuller campaign/strategic/operational-level experience.

I do not have exact examples, but it would be more like a full campaign where the forces do not know where each other are, and the forces may or may not be equal forces, and so in that situation the Interdictior being able to pull/keep units from going into hyperspace has value. I see it kind of like having a supply ship, in battle not that much use, but in a more strategic game has much more value.

On 26/11/2017 at 4:33 AM, Ardaedhel said:

and @X Wing Nut I believe stream with some regularity as well.

https://www.youtube.com/user/FlyCasualxwing we streaming Armada this Thursday and have a tournament on this Saturday

im confused, I cannot find the guide to nebulons in the OP

I've had pretty good success with a relatively light Raider-I, sporting just External Racks (though I would love to find the points for OE). I've seasawed between the ER and FT, but I'm pretty sure ER is by far the better upgrade since it's so much more versatile and makes him a mean ship to face. I've been running it along with a ISD2, GSD1, two Gozantis, and Jerry. What I've found is that at 47 points, he can play the roll of a VSD - flank it to the side of the ISD so there's no real escape from the ISD pain free. Even if you manage to flee medium range or the front arc, you have the little Raider right there going to unload 4 blacks, 2 blues, and likely a concentrate fire die (blue if I still need an accuracy, black otherwise) to make sure you pay for your movement. With the Demo coming around on the other flank, you're forced to eat some nastiness at some point. And if you're shooting at it, it'll likely die, but that's a round (or two) of not shooting at the ISD, which likely means you're not killing it in the match, a trade off I've *very* willing to make. The two blues from his front arc, along with his speed, make him the best ship in my fleet for chasing down flotillas. The Demo just has to rely on ramming them to death, and the ISD can't afford to be wasting its shots on something so cheap.

Plus, when needed, the Raider can provide some squadron support since I'm relatively light on squadrons myself. Again - even if he ends up eating it to a bomber run, that's a turn spent bombing the Raider and not the ISD. That's a win in my book.

On 2017-11-25 at 2:09 AM, Snipafist said:

I think it's a bit of hyperbole at this point, but back in wave 2 it was widely hated. As people have gotten more practice with it and some have done well with it competitively, it's been improving in popularity. I suspect if a poll were held right now, the worst Imperial ship award would probably go to the Interdictor. For Rebels, it's a bit tougher to guess exactly who would "win," so chances are that the Interdictor would probably win overall worst if only due to the Rebel vote being splintered and the Imperial vote being more focused.

Note: that's just my projections in terms of popularity overall. Just because a lot of people feel a certain way doesn't necessarily mean they're right. They weren't right about Raiders before, for example...

Indeed, after a lot of new expansions the raider has grown into a stronger ship, i don't know how many waves are yet to come but i hope the interdictor will be a great ship one day.

On 11/25/2017 at 0:15 AM, ktflory said:

Worst ship? Really? It's my 2nd favorite after the ISD.

Its my second ship after the Gladiator.

I like using Raiders as a mix of anti fighter support for my Screed Glad build so I tend to give them any one of the titles, Quad laser turrets and Assault Proton Torpedoes and I find that works pretty **** well with them although with the Raider 1 it comes out at 58 points and for that ship can be kinda expensive but with my player base spamming Xwings it can Flack them all to death then Punch A nice crit into a Mk2 Assault Frigate or other ships that may cripple it enough for my Demolisher to swing in and punch it out.

I had pretty good luck running a 6 raider list (3 raider 1s with external racks and OEs, 3 raider 2s with disposable caps, and ion cannon batteries, two of those also sporting fire control teams) in one of the last tournaments on Vassal with Jerjerrod as an admiral and a really aggressive bid to make sure I went first.

The idea was to hit and run at high speed so that the opponent was forced to go after the already activated ships that are leaving the combat zone at speed 4, or try to focus on the approaching ships that are at long range but coming in quick.

It worked really well against most fleets, except the high activation high squadron fleets (4 gozanti + isd + fighter wing from ****) which ate a raider a turn. But it did one shot a flotilla from long range using fire control teams and getting the right critical.

Now that the votes are in (38 constitutes a quorum, right?) someone should do a thread on how to use the legitimately-elected worst ship in Armada (the Interdictor), rather than the pretender to the throne.

2 hours ago, Mikael Hasselstein said:

Now that the votes are in (38 constitutes a quorum, right?) someone should do a thread on how to use the legitimately-elected worst ship in Armada (the Interdictor), rather than the pretender to the throne.

... Because its not like people will listen, anyway.

17 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

... Because its not like people will listen, anyway.

I can say from my experience with the Raider that people will listen (eventually, anyways). Especially if you've got a static source (like on a blog) that is easily found (and linked to) and you've got some proven results with the maligned ship.

The thing that will drive you (as in both the general "you" but more specifically you, @Drasnighta ) insane is when you spend hours writing up a big thorough guide to (whatever) explaining how it can be used well and how to avoid obvious pitfalls and then someone responds with "oh yeah, well I used this thing in the blatantly bad way you said would be bad and it sucked , so I'm gonna go post about giving it 10 more brace tokens in the 'ships that need to be errataed' chain right now! It's the worst ship ever lol." It's not that someone disagrees and gives reasons for doing so (which is fine, that's the marketplace of ideas), it's that the occasional person the article was specifically designed to help seems to barely read the article if they read it at all and then gets angry and indignant that you tried to help them get better with something they weren't presently skilled at. It's mind-boggling.

So if you do decide to scale Interdictor mountain, be aware you've got that ahead of you. Thankfully, that kind of response is fairly rare, but it happens and I know it will get your goat because I know you.

You will note that is why my references to Nose Punch are scattered and not collated.

Someone willing it to read and understand will go to the effort to find it.

Those who will not, do not.

And ”Proven Success” is why I don’t blog in general ?

In fairness to the Interdictor, it does the thing it's supposed to do pretty well. The only problem is, that thing is not fighting, and that's not terribly exciting.

I've heard of an interdictor list doing exceptionally well in a tournament, but I figure the way to win with it isn't conductive to actually playing the game. You use interdictor tricks like yanking contested outposts on your side of the board with GravShift Reroute and staying there at speed 0, with a couple of VSDs, until your opponent comes into your killing zone to try getting the outpost back. Hold out for turn 6 until your opponent finally gets into range, then kill at least one ship to win the match. On turn 6, unless one of your mediums gets one-shot, there won't be enough points to wear them down. Your objectives can be Contested Outpost, Station Assault, and Sensor Net with a ton of shuttles to drag the ever-scoring objectives back on your side of the board while you fling thiers into oblivion, or closer to you so you can score those too.

It's not fun to play against (or for some players, with ), but it wins.

When you consider an Interdictor, the best way to go about winning with it is ask yourself how it can help you win your game, not defeat your opponent's ships. It doesn't matter in the end of their fleet's standing, as long as you scored enough points to win the game you're in.

On 2017. 11. 26. at 2:28 PM, Mikael Hasselstein said:

What do you mean to 'switch the game to a more strategic one' - do you mean something like the Corellian Conflict, or something homebrew? If so, care to offer examples? I'm fishing around for ideas to 'flesh out' CC for a fuller campaign/strategic/operational-level experience.

Controlling the game. I used it as a TS support for GSD so I can be more aggressive. You can use it for objective control: speed control, GSR, FCT-lambdas, etc.

It allows you to dictate the tempo, to mess with the enemy, it rewards the foresight and the general game knowledge, you need to shepherd your enemy, to shape the battlefield to your advantage. It's a powerful tool, just hard to build for it, given the cost.

27 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

In fairness to the Interdictor, it does the thing it's supposed to do pretty well. The only problem is, that thing is not fighting, and that's not terribly exciting.

I've heard of an interdictor list doing exceptionally well in a tournament, but I figure the way to win with it isn't conductive to actually playing the game. You use interdictor tricks like yanking contested outposts on your side of the board with GravShift Reroute and staying there at speed 0, with a couple of VSDs, until your opponent comes into your killing zone to try getting the outpost back. Hold out for turn 6 until your opponent finally gets into range, then kill at least one ship to win the match. On turn 6, unless one of your mediums gets one-shot, there won't be enough points to wear them down. Your objectives can be Contested Outpost, Station Assault, and Sensor Net with a ton of shuttles to drag the ever-scoring objectives back on your side of the board while you fling thiers into oblivion, or closer to you so you can score those too.

It's not fun to play against (or for some players, with ), but it wins.

When you consider an Interdictor, the best way to go about winning with it is ask yourself how it can help you win your game, not defeat your opponent's ships. It doesn't matter in the end of their fleet's standing, as long as you scored enough points to win the game you're in.

Ah, you type faster than me

47 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

In fairness to the Interdictor, it does the thing it's supposed to do pretty well. The only problem is, that thing is not fighting, and that's not terribly exciting.

I've heard of an interdictor list doing exceptionally well in a tournament, but I figure the way to win with it isn't conductive to actually playing the game. You use interdictor tricks like yanking contested outposts on your side of the board with GravShift Reroute and staying there at speed 0, with a couple of VSDs, until your opponent comes into your killing zone to try getting the outpost back. Hold out for turn 6 until your opponent finally gets into range, then kill at least one ship to win the match. On turn 6, unless one of your mediums gets one-shot, there won't be enough points to wear them down. Your objectives can be Contested Outpost, Station Assault, and Sensor Net with a ton of shuttles to drag the ever-scoring objectives back on your side of the board while you fling thiers into oblivion, or closer to you so you can score those too.

It's not fun to play against (or for some players, with ), but it wins.

When you consider an Interdictor, the best way to go about winning with it is ask yourself how it can help you win your game, not defeat your opponent's ships. It doesn't matter in the end of their fleet's standing, as long as you scored enough points to win the game you're in.

Nose punch is completely the opposite.

its an aggressive 1st player preferred list that involves setting your opponent on the back foot then making him choke on double arcing Interdictor wedges.

?

Because it’s never what anyone expects or plans for.