2 minutes ago, shmitty said:

Truth.

Although given how much more common command tokens are currently I imagine if he were released to day he would work in 3 turns instead of 2.

Or refresh in Turn 4.

Just now, BiggsIRL said:

Or refresh in Turn 4.

Or be useful for anything at all.

16 minutes ago, shmitty said:

Truth.

Although given how much more common command tokens are currently I imagine if he were released to day he would work in 3 turns instead of 2.

I thought @Truthiness didn't believe in the church of Garm....

4 minutes ago, geek19 said:

I thought @Truthiness didn't believe in the church of Garm....

We know with great certainty that command tokens were highly valued by the game's designers.

Tarkin. Vet captain. Liaisons.

Wave 2 also.

Seems they missed the mark a bit, and oc comms net didn't exactly help.

36 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

Or be useful for anything at all.

18 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

8 hours ago, Noosh said:

As soon as they release more generic titles I'm making a 7 nebulon B fleet. I will call it the 'B Team'! That name is too good maybe I'll just do it anyways. Seriously though some generic titles would be really cool like a strike fleet title gives an extra dice/reroll on fc commands. Or as skirmish fleet title to activate an additional fighter or as long as the fighter is in between two or more ships with this title you can issue a squadron command to it. That would be really cool! Anyways B Team, titles, excitement, dice!

Actually I don't even think you'll need titles. The key for the Neb lies in the Support Officer that isn't all that common. Perhaps a Support Officer that takes advantage of their strengths.

Maybe a support officer that allows you to spend an evade and brace to add a red die to any long-medium range attack? (That would also help Gladiators, which you could argue might be able to use the help if they aren't demolisher).

8 hours ago, Green Knight said:

Armada is a fun game, but at the competitive level it isn't as fun and varied as you'd like to think.

Some food for thought (I'm willfully exaggerating to make my points):

Activations are king, and flotilla spam all too common as a result. It's not 2+3 anymore. Its 2+4, or 1+5. Ugh.

Being able to deliver a few, devastating damage spikes that bypass most defense tokens is more important than a well-rounded fleet. Demo always did this; now we have MANY more options.

Squads now offer excellent stand-off range, to the extent where Yavaris-relay and Sloane-relay is wrecking stuff long before fleets actually engage. Primary solution... do your own Yavaris or Sloane.

Some REALLY stupid cards. Yavaris continues to be a stupid good force multiplier. Toryn Farr the same. Both cards are so good they effectively shape each and every thing take can be added to the game, and that I think greatly limits development. Those were just 2 examples btw. Rhymer (old)/Demo (still) go into the same category.

Objective selection is laughable. Two words: "Most Wanted". While that's the most grotesque case, there are only so many strong objectives. The rest are mediocre at best.

I was thinking about this. Every fleet is having a tendency to being rhythmic with a single or two emphasised notes a round.

These lists can only respond to one front at once.

So why do we not have lists that bring a crescendo in turn 3 with all ships engaging simultaneously? I cant see why.

Ps. I am not musical at all

6 minutes ago, Crabbok said:

Actually I don't even think you'll need titles. The key for the Neb lies in the Support Officer that isn't all that common. Perhaps a Support Officer that takes advantage of their strengths.

Maybe a support officer that allows you to spend an evade and brace to add a red die to any long-medium range attack? (That would also help Gladiators, which you could argue might be able to use the help if they aren't demolisher).

Why would a support team produce a direct bonus to an attack? That's completely contrary to what support teams do compared to weapon teams.

Anything that allowed for some easier shield repositioning (ex: exhaust/discard for 2 repair points useful only for moving shields) / a fake redirect would likely do the trick. You can put Medical Teams there presently, and they do increase survivability slightly (but what were you expecting for 1 point?).

They are supporting the guns with a proper gun tube cleaning and zeroing the sights. I think they even lubed up the chamber!

And to be fair, out of the 6 support teams, we have 2 that deal with Engineering, 2 that deal with Nav, one that deals with incomming damage, and one that deals with squadrons. Granted fighter coordination team isn't directly dealing damage, but it's directly related to carriers who generally tend to run squadron commands (Which are generally on the offensive half of the command dial), so it stands to reason we could see a support team at some point to round out the spectrum of commands by dealing with ship to ship combat, or the concentrate fire command.

But primarily, the reason here would be for game balance. When a ship has to have both support team, nav, and brace, you are drastically reducing the number of ships that can take it, and this could be a case of game-balance > fluff.

11 hours ago, duck_bird said:

• Relay just needs to work as a relay. The relay squadron must be in range of the activating ship.

While it wouldn't break the game, and it's possible it could improve play styles (I disagree, but who knows)...

...you do understand that the cost of the effectiveness of relay is baked into the ludicrously overpriced ships that feature it, right? I mean, knock 5 pts off the cost of the squadrons toting 'relay', and we'll talk about this change...but as-is? Oh, heck no...

5 minutes ago, xanderf said:

While it wouldn't break the game, and it's possible it could improve play styles (I disagree, but who knows)...

...you do understand that the cost of the effectiveness of relay is baked into the ludicrously overpriced ships that feature it, right? I mean, knock 5 pts off the cost of the squadrons toting 'relay', and we'll talk about this change...but as-is? Oh, heck no...

I mean... 'ludicrously' is overstating it.

On the Imperial side, for 15 points you get Strategic and Relay 2. The only downside is Heavy. While those 2 black don't do anything against scatter aces, they have a good probability of putting out 2 damage. Tie that to a meaty 6 hull, they seem priced appropriately, even if Relay requires the relay squadron to be in range of the commanding ship. Not to mention, for a mere 5 points more you get Jendon, which loses strategic, but is practically an auto-include for any list using medium to max squads.

On the Rebel side you only get Relay 1 with your strategic, but your ship is even meatier and throws a few more dice. I think their cost is almost worth it for strategic alone.

Throws more dice with the same average damage.

but really, it’s the Relay 2 vs 1 that is the main difference...

A rare note of optimism from me: Introducing raid in a wave where nothing else was particularly standout-ish (2 more large ships..... woooo...) was an excellent idea for a game changer. Unknown if its going to actually change the game _enough_, but its really a new mechanic and way of thinking about things. Plus at least they're trying to rein in the mass squadrons in a way that is adaptive.

I think the game's competitive meta is unhealthy, some base parts of the game are really not designed well....

But the models are gorgeous. The difference in models from ISDs to fighters is amazing immersion for a naval sim.
There's a lot of ways to play the game (the sad part is a lot of them are utterly destroyed by a certain few.)

The best part though is how the designers are adapting the design. While I don't _agree_ with some of the things, and some are utterly power-level-test=untested_bonkers, they have tried constantly to shift the game.

Wave 2 Large ships and Rogue
Wave 3 Non-combat flotillas, BCC -> Squadrons are a now a force to be reckoned with (too much.)
Wave 5 Relay and Strategic, Moffy J and upgrades intended to fix the VSD.
Wave 6 Boarding Teams, Rieekan and squadrons nerf
Wave 7 Raid

The game keeps adding depth and options based around new mechanics. I like this.

4 hours ago, geek19 said:

I thought @Truthiness didn't believe in the church of Garm....

Praise be to Madine, master of the nav chart, most evasive, ever maneuverable, king of the day of Regionals. You alone we worship, and with you alone we can k-turn. Guide us along the manuever tool that is squiggly, the path that you have blessed, not of those who are zombified, or those that lazily congoline.

And please never let me be captured by radical Islamic extremists, who are certain to chop off my head after reading this post

8 minutes ago, Truthiness said:

Praise be to Madine, master of the nav chart, most evasive, ever maneuverable, king of the day of Regionals. You alone we worship, and with you alone we can k-turn. Guide us along the manuever tool that is squiggly, the path that you have blessed, not of those who are zombified, or those that lazily congoline.

And please never let me be captured by radical Islamic extremists, who are certain to chop off my head after reading this post

People's Front of Madine? Splitters!

I worship at the Church of Yavin IV. May Leia provide us dials plus tokens for years to come, and may Dodonna top deck all the Comms Noise and Projector Misaligned we can find.

To be fair, I think Toryn at best levels the playing field (ace holes aside) for rebel squadrons. When everyone is playing aces, your really need to be reliably doing 3 damage per sqn to make attacking a double brace ace worthwhile. Imps can do this with ease but very few rebels can without help.

I agree the game is the greatest! But there are a couple of things we need to look at

- barriers to entry for new players - we need a community that welcomes and helps new players rapidly get their heads around how to play effectively. Its no good playing every game either as a tournament game or in preparation for one. This year I'm always going to try to have two lists in the bag, one for 'competititve' and one for more fun/trying stuff/player practice. Its no good when a new player tries to make a start and gets mercilessly destroyed while achieving nothing, which can easily happen in this game when activations and positioning are so lethal. Heaps of Kudos to the guys that do their own content and support for new players!!

- Official support - One wave a year may be survivable, but long periods with no hype or expansion do a lot of damage. Unfortunately here in Australia I think the game was almost crippled right at the start with the wait for Wave 2. Not having any Massing at Sullust support made it even worse. I think we lost a lot of players in this period who bought the core set and a bit of wave 1 but never came back. Unfortunately we can't force FFG to be more active!!!

3 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

Wave 2 Large ships and Rogue
Wave 3 Non-combat flotillas, BCC -> Squadrons are a now a force to be reckoned with (too much.)
Wave 5 Relay and Strategic, Moffy J and upgrades intended to fix the VSD.
Wave 6 Boarding Teams, Rieekan and squadrons nerf
Wave 7 Raid

Wave 8 The Force. Palpatine and Yoda as Admirals, and Force feats to influence dice and manoeuvers. First time Squadron feats, for Luke and Vador.

15 minutes ago, Ophion said:

- barriers to entry for new players - we need a community that welcomes and helps new players rapidly get their heads around how to play effectively. Its no good playing every game either as a tournament game or in preparation for one. This year I'm always going to try to have two lists in the bag, one for 'competititve' and one for more fun/trying stuff/player practice. Its no good when a new player tries to make a start and gets mercilessly destroyed while achieving nothing, which can easily happen in this game when activations and positioning are so lethal. Heaps of Kudos to the guys that do their own content and support for new players!!

Agree on all points here. This is the reason that I always lug all of my crap to Armada night: if we get a new player or an onlooker, I can always immediately offer to let them push an Imperial Star Destroyer around on the table whether they've bought in or are just casually looking around. I can also always scale the quality of my fleet appropriate to the person I'm playing.

Garm Neb B's with Lancers for new players.

MC30's for people prepping for major tournaments.

ET CR90B's for people who've pissed me off.

17 hours ago, duck_bird said:

Regarding Flotilla Spam: I agree. As I get more experience with this game this is the thing that bugs me most. I've played a bunch of I-go-You-go type games, and also probably every naval strategy game ever made, so I've seen how potent activation advantage can be in any game like this. But I think SWA has a few unique factors that really benefit flotilla spam as pure activation-padding:

• Flotillas are cheap. Like really really cheap. 18 points can be something like 10-15% of a big ship. This ratio is way beyond anything I've seen in other games, and makes the inclusion of multiple flotillas a no-brainer.
• Flotillas are surprisingly hard to kill. Scatter/Evade means it's really hard to kill these guys without tools dedicated to the job. Shooting at them at long range is almost always wasted effort
• Flotillas give up no victory conditions. You just get those 18 or 23 points for popping one.
• Relay allows them to function from across the board, so a very viable strategy (I have lost to this numerous times so I might just be salty) is to have all your flotillas at max speed flying in random directions as far apart as possible. It's not even worth sending a combat ship to chase one of these things down.
• The movement-range to shooting-range ratio is way smaller than in many other games. Ships can go from completely out of weapons range to close-murder range in a single turn, making activation advantage massively important.
• Damage output does not degrade as a ship takes damage (barring certain crits) A 1hp ISD hits just as hard as a full hp ISD, which forces a kind of all-or-nothing focus, again making activation advantage very important.
• Flat card costs mean that upgrading flotillas is kind of discouraged. They are encouraged to be as cheap as possible, as Boosted Comms is simply more effective on a Quasar than on a Gozanti for the same price.

Now all that said, I love this game and think it's one of the best designed ones I've ever played. That said, some possible solutions that I've seen in other games that could maybe have similar tweaks for SWA?

• Without increasing flotilla points cost, perhaps allow for more objectives that grant VPs based on flat ships destroyed? In some other games, every ship or squadron regardless of size gives up a flat amount of victory points. So you *can* take a bunch of minimally sized frigate or scout squads, but you can be heavily punished if your opponent hunts them.
• Tweak their survivability somehow? I dunno. The amount of firepower you have to point at a flotilla feels disproportionate to what you actually get for destroying one.
• Relay just needs to work as a relay. The relay squadron must be in range of the activating ship.
• Flotillas either cannot interact with objectives, or do not count towards remaining ships for being tabled.

I dunno, hard to say. As to your 2nd point about the game being about damage spikes.... I don't really think there's an easy solution. There are too many base game mechanics that lead to this. I don't think there's an elegant solution without an overhaul of the game, which no one wants.

As for your final point with Relay... I agree! I think relay either needs to function as a relay in that the ship activating needs to be able to reach the relay squadron, or maybe relay squads shouldn't be so damned tanky? If they were easier to snipe, and required escort protection I think it would open up a lot of options for dealing with it. As is both Lambdas and especially VCXs can facetank a hit or two without a second thought. Or maybe Relay and Strategic shouldn't have been put on the same squad? Feels like a very safe inclusion for objective control *and* flotilla safety.

But I dunno. I have a lot of experience with other games but I'm still fairly new to SWA so it's possible I'm missing things. I would love to hear if folks agree or disagree or if there are perhaps easier solutions or if we simply need to git gud etc.

Pass Rule?

"Relay just needs to work as a relay. The relay squadron must be in range of the activating ship." I do like this idea might just fix the Relay problem

On 1/9/2018 at 3:08 AM, Crabbok said:

Sorry guys, I'm just in a really good mood today!

But dude... I can go run a Wave 2 Ackbar build and it's still competitive against modern lists. Here we are, multiple years in, and every ship is still a viable ship!

It amazes me how well this game was designed. So few problems... And even the few problems are going to be fixed soon. I think Garm and Tarkin will both see more play in Wave 7. Also, the only ship that I genuinely feel is weak right now, (The Pelta) is about to find some new usage in wave 7!

It's a good time to be an Armada player! Just hope we get more stuff this year! Keep it coming FFG!

One of the main reasons I bought into the game was because when researching it, I saw such a variety of ships in competitive games. Not only that, but many of these ships were wave 1!

I play a lot of X-Wing, which has a wider range of ships to choose from, and this does not happen.

53 minutes ago, X Wing Nut said:

I don't think there's an elegant solution without an overhaul of the game, which no one wants.

I want this. =)

I'm not holding my breath for it though. But if I had nothing to do with my time, I'd start 3D printing new parts and remake the game.

10 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

I was thinking about this. Every fleet is having a tendency to being rhythmic with a single or two emphasised notes a round.

These lists can only respond to one front at once.

So why do we not have lists that bring a crescendo in turn 3 with all ships engaging simultaneously? I cant see why.

Ps. I am not musical at all

That could be an interesting approach. Avoiding multiple engagement was the first thing I learnt during my watch destined on a DeMSU squad.

It is something I try when facing other MSUs but it is more a tactical approach during the battle. I didn't build a fleet around it yet.

I think this game is in a great spot. There has been some list that dominated the meta, but in the end, something else has always come along and still been able to beat it. There is no solid 1 answer to the whole game, each go is different and forces you to use your whole list. I feel that every idea is viable... waiting to see you do something now Tagge... There are cards that I do not touch with a ten foot pole, but each time a wave comes out, it feels like some of those old cards get called back in to action that become forgotten.

6 hours ago, Truthiness said:

Praise be to Madine, master of the nav chart, most evasive, ever maneuverable, king of the day of Regionals. You alone we worship, and with you alone we can k-turn. Guide us along the manuever tool that is squiggly, the path that you have blessed, not of those who are zombified, or those that lazily congoline.

And please never let me be captured by radical Islamic extremists, who are certain to chop off my head after reading this post

You know that Madine is just a demigod right? Born from Mothma (mortal *****) when Jerjerrod (god) ****** her *** hard.