2 hours ago, Mon Cala Blue said:

Oh how cute, now the Imperials can equip fleet command onto any Star Destroyer and can even swap out upgrade cards for more expensive upgrades potentially allowing them to exceed the points limits for lists.

Meanwhile, the MC80 Command Cruiser does not have, and will probably never have, access to fleet command despite the fact that Home One is supposed to be the flagship of the entire Rebel Alliance Fleet .

I can't wait for Wave 8 to release the Braha'tok -class gunships alongside the Executor class Star Destroyer. To be honest though, I am even more excited for the article explaining how it will be the most balanced and super fun release ever . Thankfully that happy day probably isn't happening anytime before 2020.

I have said, I feel the Imperials have lost whining rights, until such time as my Rebels can equip a targeting scrambler ?

52 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

I have said, I feel the Imperials have lost whining rights, until such time as my Rebels can equip a targeting scrambler ?

Look at that, a rebel trying to take away people's rights. And they say the Empire is oppressive.

55 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

I have said, I feel the Imperials have lost whining rights, until such time as my Rebels can equip a targeting scrambler ?

Wholeheartedly agree.

Playing imperials, the faction definitely feels like it's been made whole.

1 hour ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

As anecdotal evidence, I'd point to the fact that we've never seen Pelta-containing lists doing well on the table in large events.

This is actually false. There were a number of Rieekan aces fleets that used a Pelta, Yavaris, and 3 Flottilas pre FAQ that were doing extremely well. @Dorrin314 used that list in a few high level tournaments as well, and he placed rather highly if I'm not mistaken.

@RikkiP had something like that when he won uk nationals

2 hours ago, Coldhands said:

Dude, are fc-s so amazing, will they be gamebreakers for the empire? For the effect of IF there is Vader, for EF there is Ozzel, STM-->Motti. AFFM is almost useless as most of the fighters already outrun the rebels. Poor poor rebels... Btw, you can be sure rebels will have acces to experimental stuff soon.

Fleet Commands have never been amazing because before the only ship that could use them had the durability and maneuverability of a bathtub and it was therefore risky to invest in a strategy that relied on them. While the fleet commands themselves do not appear amazing it is the synergy they have with other upgrades that makes them potentially very powerful.

Motti on an ISD2 with Chimaera and Shields to Maximum provides increased hull strength and a passive point of shield recovery each turn fleet wide. If you add Redundant Shields to Motti you then have a 14 hull flagship that is passively recovering two shield points each turn. Thrawn instead of Motti is arguably even more dangerous as Thrawn could provide a fleet wide bonus engineering command dial 3 out of 5 turns. In short you now have an incredibly tanky flagship that provides continual fleet wide healing bonuses and is an excellent form of points denial. This is just off the top my head and I am sure others could find even more nasty combos than this.

We should be careful about getting indignant over theorycrafted Armada.

Could be that FC on ISDs is amazing. Could be that the ISD is so expensive that the FCs will be difficult to utilize. Could even be that unrevealed cards in the MC75 will totally tilt the balance.

A real release and plastic on the table will let us know for sure.

20 minutes ago, Mon Cala Blue said:

Fleet Commands have never been amazing because before the only ship that could use them had the durability and maneuverability of a bathtub and it was therefore risky to invest in a strategy that relied on them. While the fleet commands themselves do not appear amazing it is the synergy they have with other upgrades that makes them potentially very powerful.

Motti on an ISD2 with Chimaera and Shields to Maximum provides increased hull strength and a passive point of shield recovery each turn fleet wide. If you add Redundant Shields to Motti you then have a 14 hull flagship that is passively recovering two shield points each turn. Thrawn instead of Motti is arguably even more dangerous as Thrawn could provide a fleet wide bonus engineering command dial 3 out of 5 turns. In short you now have an incredibly tanky flagship that provides continual fleet wide healing bonuses and is an excellent form of points denial. This is just off the top my head and I am sure others could find even more nasty combos than this.

Aaaand, a huge chunk of your points went into one single ship. I think we can round it to 150, lets say 180 with Thrawn. Lets say you dont hate squadrons, another 100 points gone, leaving 120 points for ships to benefit from the fc. What do you take? Well, a comms net gozanti is always useful, feeds all your fc-s. 95 points left. A decent demolisher? mediocore vsd2? One arq and one more gozanti? Im not sold on this one. Will be great for the game, we will see a lot of new possibility, but wont be earth shattering.

At least pelta leaves some space in your fleet:) Also, assault version with ET is not that terrible, and isnt that hard to feed both the FC and the ET.

But, we will see, I find it useful when different opinions meet, so all of us can learn and improve.

1 hour ago, Coldhands said:

Aaaand, a huge chunk of your points went into one single ship. I think we can round it to 150, lets say 180 with Thrawn. Lets say you dont hate squadrons, another 100 points gone, leaving 120 points for ships to benefit from the fc. What do you take? Well, a comms net gozanti is always useful, feeds all your fc-s. 95 points left. A decent demolisher? mediocore vsd2? One arq and one more gozanti? Im not sold on this one. Will be great for the game, we will see a lot of new possibility, but wont be earth shattering.

At least pelta leaves some space in your fleet:) Also, assault version with ET is not that terrible, and isnt that hard to feed both the FC and the ET.

But, we will see, I find it useful when different opinions meet, so all of us can learn and improve.

Wellllllll...

Three TRC IF Arqs come to mind, to help the Yularen-aided Motti ISD. With under a hundred points of squadrons, of course, because come on, why let squad costs eat into the main list idea? We were using CN Gozantis already, but they aren’t crucial and the whole setup only really adds 16 points even with Wulff. If you want to run the expensive admiral with the expensive ISD and the expensive squadrons, that’s fine.

My list fits okay though.

Edit: Realized I can fit TRC in there after all.

Just now, The Jabbawookie said:

Wellllllll...

Three naked IF Arqs come to mind, to help the Yularen-aided ISD. With under a hundred points of squadrons, of course, because come on, why let squad costs eat into the main list idea?

It fits.

Why? I had too much games lately with/against fleets featuring Yavaris. I saw more ISD-s go down in one turn than taking 2 turns sinking it. Also, relayed squads will eat 2 arqs, and youre almost down to 8-3, without any ship combat. Its too risky to go without squads, thats for sure, and 60-80 point balls are usually just gifts to max squads.

34 minutes ago, Coldhands said:

Aaaand, a huge chunk of your points went into one single ship. I think we can round it to 150, lets say 180 with Thrawn. Lets say you dont hate squadrons, another 100 points gone, leaving 120 points for ships to benefit from the fc. What do you take? Well, a comms net gozanti is always useful, feeds all your fc-s. 95 points left. A decent demolisher? mediocore vsd2? One arq and one more gozanti? Im not sold on this one. Will be great for the game, we will see a lot of new possibility, but wont be earth shattering.

At least pelta leaves some space in your fleet:) Also, assault version with ET is not that terrible, and isnt that hard to feed both the FC and the ET.

But, we will see, I find it useful when different opinions meet, so all of us can learn and improve.

In other words we need higher point matches, so we can actually use all these awesome ships

Just now, Lord Tareq said:

In other words we need higher point matches, so we can actually use all these awesome ships

Haha, true that:) Id love to field once all my ships in a single battle Easily 2500 points

1 minute ago, Coldhands said:

Why? I had too much games lately with/against fleets featuring Yavaris. I saw more ISD-s go down in one turn than taking 2 turns sinking it. Also, relayed squads will eat 2 arqs, and youre almost down to 8-3, without any ship combat. Its too risky to go without squads, thats for sure, and 60-80 point balls are usually just gifts to max squads.

I'm not convinced that 60-80 point squad balls are that ineffective. This article has been rather influential in my squadron composition building. (Tagging @Snipafist and @geek19 , who write the blog). The long and the short of it is: max squads tend to spend a lot on bombers, which means that you can outfight them in the squadron phase with less points if you take dedicated anti-fighter squads.

17 minutes ago, Coldhands said:

Why? I had too much games lately with/against fleets featuring Yavaris. I saw more ISD-s go down in one turn than taking 2 turns sinking it. Also, relayed squads will eat 2 arqs, and youre almost down to 8-3, without any ship combat. Its too risky to go without squads, thats for sure, and 60-80 point balls are usually just gifts to max squads.

Squadrons are not invincible, and bringing 100 points of your own squadrons, with support craft, is far from the only solution. Managing 60 points of squadrons against a superior force certainly takes skill, but it’s entirely doable if you leverage your other advantages.

36 minutes ago, Coldhands said:

Why? I had too much games lately with/against fleets featuring Yavaris. I saw more ISD-s go down in one turn than taking 2 turns sinking it. Also, relayed squads will eat 2 arqs, and youre almost down to 8-3, without any ship combat. Its too risky to go without squads, thats for sure, and 60-80 point balls are usually just gifts to max squads.

Here, let's lay a wager. You bring Yavaris B-wings, and I'll bring one of my dual Large builds. Alternatively we wait until W7 formally drops and I'll have an IF ISD+Arq fleeet. If I win, we cut this Doom and gloom business. If you win, nothing happens because you can't prove a negative and I'm nowhere near the player JJ or the like is.

Or, my preference, we can cut to the chase and cut the generalities and negativity. Yes, Yavaris is a deadly threat, especially with B-wings. It's also difficult to fly against, given its native agility. But it isn't invincible. @Ardaedhel , how many shots did Renown take on Yavaris?

@Coldhands yes Yavaris is one of the cards that are pushing broken/overplayed right now. It's obscene to fight into. My second Armada game ever I watched a HA Victory disintegrate under that exact tactic before it ever did anything. It's also not a reason to be a negative person, and it's not a reason to discount player skill, playstyle, and familiarity in matchups. I apologize if the reply above comes across as cutting or insulting, I've had a long day, though that's no excuse. Please just try to be constructive instead of dismissing and condescending.

18 minutes ago, GiledPallaeon said:

But it isn't invincible. @Ardaedhel , how many shots did Renown take on Yavaris?

Fewer than it took on Admonition ...

On the larger point about squadron defense... 60ish points of overall squadron defense is generally my benchmark, regardless of the form that takes: squadrons, defensive upgrades, Cluster Bombs, whatever. If you're spending more than that (accounting for the fact that some things you're buying for that purpose also do other stuff, e.g., a FleshRaider is a good ship to have in your fleet regardless of its anti-squadron tooling), you're being inefficient and will suffer against squadronless fleets. The further under that number you can go, the more efficient overall you can get your fleet.

100 points of defensive squadrons is way too much. Multirole squadrons, yeah: bring 100 points of X-wings under a BCC, bring 100 points of TIE Defenders, no problem, you've still got a bunch of effective bombers after the squadron fight. But if you're bringing 100 points of TIE Interceptors (and not Sloane), you're doing it wrong.

It's the entire basis for my Mothma MC30's, where I see myself as having spent maybe 20 points of the fleet (Mothma, who has plenty of other value besides squadron defense so I don't count her full value against it) on squadron defense, effectively giving me a net +40ish points to play with over the benchmark. And yes, it works against Yavaris . @Brikhause will tell you all about it.

10 minutes ago, GiledPallaeon said:

@Coldhands yes Yavaris is one of the cards that are pushing broken/overplayed right now. It's obscene to fight into. My second Armada game ever I watched a HA Victory disintegrate under that exact tactic before it ever did anything. It's also not a reason to be a negative person, and it's not a reason to discount player skill, playstyle, and familiarity in matchups. I apologize if the reply above comes across as cutting or insulting, I've had a long day, though that's no excuse. Please just try to be constructive instead of dismissing and condescending.

Don't take this the wrong way, 'cause I agree with your point 100% but

You know where ISD based fleet commands will be really good? In CC all out offensive, where all imperial ships will benefit from it.

41 minutes ago, The Jabbawookie said:

Don't take this the wrong way, 'cause I agree with your point 100% but

Blame fluid mechanics. But message received loud and clear nonetheless.

Just now, GiledPallaeon said:

Blame fluid mechanics. But message received loud and clear nonetheless.

I'm out of likes today, but I remain sympathetic.

1 hour ago, GiledPallaeon said:

Blame fluid mechanics. But message received loud and clear nonetheless.

I actually remember fluids being ok, it was heat transfer that was a minor issue the first time (amusingly weirder, it's what the Masters is technically in)

10 minutes ago, geek19 said:

I actually remember fluids being ok, it was heat transfer that was a minor issue the first time (amusingly weirder, it's what the Masters is technically in)

Conceptually it's fine. I'm not happy with how convoluted Navier-Stokes, but I get the physical principles. The issue is the "conceptual" tests I know I can solve, given a whiteboard, two question, and an hour. Instead I get pen, paper, and thirty minutes.

1 hour ago, GiledPallaeon said:

Conceptually it's fine. I'm not happy with how convoluted Navier-Stokes, but I get the physical principles. The issue is the "conceptual" tests I know I can solve, given a whiteboard, two question, and an hour. Instead I get pen, paper, and thirty minutes.

If you want real BS, Physics tests. There was one where the curved average out of 30 possible points was a 9. Good times, quantum mechanics! Good times!