I was wondering how do you plan your fleet?

do you pick the Admiral then work around that or do you pick them around ships or better yet you get an idea for how the fleet should work then choose the Admiral and Ships/Fighters to do that job?

Iv been wondering this as Iv noticed I kinda pick A ship then work a list around it, although saying that Screed and Sloane is life for me at the moment........

I pick my squadrons then the best Ships, Upgrades and Admiral to push them the best objective for the list

or

I think of a really nasty strategy to beat my opponent and build around that

I recall @Ginkapo or someone else writing an article about choosing a commander first and fitting the fleet according to that choice or creating the fleet and then choosing the admiral.

The way I plan for my fleets usually runs along these lines:

I usually pick the admiral first, and then fit the fleet around the admiral's particular benefit. For instance, if I pick Dodonna, I either have a bomber oriented fleet or a fleet bent on using APT more than once per turn.

Moreover, I also always plan on having more than one threat per fleet. If I run a bomber oriented fleet, the bombers comprise the primary threat. The secondary threat would in my case typically consist of Admonition, so in the case of the bombers getting tied down I can still do damage, and threaten the state of the board.

So the way that I plan my fleet is:

(i) Pick an admiral - then pick ships in order to maximise the synergy between admiral and fleet.

(ii) Consider how many threats I can include - so that I do not lose the game in case the enemy can dodge my primary threat.

There are many other variables, which I also to some extent weigh my fleet composition against. E.g. the amount of anti-squadron fire power I can muster, how well I can hold against large ships, MSU fleets etc. Knowing the weakness of my fleet also plays a significant role in the creation of it - so that I can better plan how to handle unfavourable matchups

On my case it depends on each case cause I build around what I want to play.

Sometimes I want to play on commander, let's say Screed, so I build around him to maximise his power. Black dice pools and nasty critical effects for example.

Sometimes I want to play a ship (e.g. interdictor) a setup of ships (e.g. double ISDs) or an specific setup for a ship (e.g. BTAvenger) and spice it as needed.

Sometimes I want to play in some way (e.g. victory points farming) so I build something to do it properly.

Sometimes I want something thematic.

But I suppose that when building for competitive scene I usually think the strategy I want to win and build around it. However that doesn't prevent me for building around a commander or a ship.

I like to form a fleet around a combat style, pick the ships that I want to use, then pick a commander that works well with what I've chosen so far. Then I buy upgrades seeing them as the icing on the cake. Not the greatest I'm sure but I think it yeild some interesting things.

Biggs and I have a bit of a disagreement on this topic, which spawned this article:

http://www.steelstrategy.com/2017/10/truthiness-vs-logic-factoring.html?m=1

In summary, @BiggsIRL is dumb and you should start list building with the commander

I pick an idea. Then it depends on the specific idea. If the idea clearly screams for a specific commander, then I grab that first. If the idea is based around squadrons, I go to them first. Etc.

So I pick the goal, grab the components most critical to that goal first, and then fill around.

Everyone has their own style, and if it works, it works.

My personal style is that the foundation of what I'm trying to do needs to be a strategy. I want to build an MSU fleet, or I want to build a bomber fleet, or a brawler fleet, or a conga line, or something to counter the current local meta. Sometimes this can even be building around a certain ship or commander. I want to build a good Leia list, or I want to build a fleet centered around 2 Interdictors. But even with those, your are basically picking a general strategy. You're not going to pick Leia and build a list with 2 large ships and a bunch of squadrons, so even if you pick a commander, you're picking a strategy.

After you center on a strategy, you start adding pieces based on your strategy. If you are building an MSU fleet, you start adding in the smaller ships to fill the numbers. If you are building a bomber fleet, you start with your squadrons. Start with that base idea and build up from there.

Like a,few others have mentioned, I tend to start with an overall concept, i.e. "long range skirmishers with a late-game brawler" or "objective control using strategic squads"

I prefer to spend around 250pts on ships, 80-90pts on squads, and the rest on upgrades.

On 04/12/2017 at 9:12 AM, Hawkwing said:

I recall @Ginkapo or someone else writing an article about choosing a commander first and fitting the fleet according to that choice or creating the fleet and then choosing the admiral.

I have never and will never say such a thing.

I also disagree with both Biggs and Truthiness, though I see value in Truthiness' view.

List building should start with a bold idea, a bedrock for everything that follows.

This could be, 'maximum utility of Madine', which is where Truthiness' views stem from. However, it equally could be, 'maximum bombing damage'. Note I said bombing damage rather than simply maximum bombers. Just having a lot of bombers has no effect if you dont have intel.

What are you trying to do? What element are you trying to maximise? Do you want redundancy in your list?

I usually pick a Ship like my go to in almost every list is the Gladiator and work a good fleet plan around that but I am finding that it ends up my list becomes this one trick pony and my opponent can plan around how my list works and with how my lists turn out it ends up getting close and personal with Gladiators and Raiders with screed unloading crits for days while my Tie Fighters eat up fighters and bombers while my Decimators help me to punch out support ships.

I was wondering what works for other people as iv came to the conclusion that I think my way I start a fleet plan needs to change to improve my lists and how I play the game in General as I might be trying out my regionals next year once I get more comfortable with the game and other list styles.

Youve already told me what your next fleet needs to be.

"Maximum approach firepower", both in the form of long range ship dice and bombers. Look to deal damage before the fight really begins.

You can even start from the objectives, deciding to build for first or second player(if you start with objectives, you probably go for second anyway). Figure out which ships can do best for those objectives, then which admiral gives the biggest boost to your fleet.

24 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Look to deal damage before the fight really begins.

Man, I’m already doing damage with the first activation of the game.... What more do you want?! ?

48 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Man, I’m already doing damage with the first activation of the game.... What more do you want?! ?

Are you?

With your rolling?

11 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

Are you?

With your rolling?

I played 6 games on Sunday.

The only games I won were with that list... So clearly, that fickle "Fate" is telling me something...

6 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

I played 6 games on Sunday.

This makes me unreasonably happy.

Just now, Ardaedhel said:

This makes me unreasonably happy.

Yep, thanks to @LegionOfBOOM , we basically sat down and smashed out 6 games between 10am and 6pm. Got a lot of refresh and Regionals practice in, for the both of us.

I am tempted to try out a 3 Arquitens list using Vader as my Admiral for that sweet sweet rerolly goodness, Turn them bad dice into deadly dice or knowing my luck................Blanks............

I usually decide on how I want my fleet to “fly” and pick the best ships for it and then pick the best Admiral for the ships/game plan.

I like to define some goals: "my list will do x" and I play around with options for x. I then try and pare it back to the leanest investment to achieve it (do i really need this upgrade?) and then make adjustments to account for obvious weaknesses and my local meta.

6 hours ago, Pervertious said:

I am tempted to try out a 3 Arquitens list using Vader as my Admiral for that sweet sweet rerolly goodness, Turn them bad dice into deadly dice or knowing my luck................Blanks............

I almost said, go take Vader for a spin.

Spend some time getting this list to work well for you, if nothing else you will see a different side of the game, which will make your glad play even better.

I normally start with a concept. Whether that be a fighter heavy fleet, or MSU-style, or maybe I go for a themetic approach. From that I’ll choose an admiral, and depending on the admiral will set aside a point limit for squadron. I have a bad habit of eating into the squadron points with my ships though ? I kind of build ships/upgrades and squadrons side by side.

But hey, what do I know! ?

Clearly fleet selection takes only 2 steps.

1) Decide Rebel or Imp

2) Pick the Reb/Imp list from the internet that people say is most powerful.

4 minutes ago, Democratus said:

Clearly fleet selection takes only 2 steps.

1) Decide Rebel or Imp

2) Pick the Reb/Imp list from the internet that people say is most powerful.

What people?

Because beyond vague kind of mentions, getting an actual list out of these discussions doesn’t happen all that often...

i mean, I know the concept of Rieekan Ace Holes, But there are so many variations of it it’s hard to tell which is most powerful.