1 hour ago, X Wing Nut said:

Pass Rule?

Oh no!

11 hours 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 think relay squads would still be a worthwhile investment, given their strategic trait, non-trivial stats, and the ability to continue to extend your carrier range by distance 3.

I just get salty when this is an effective first 3 deployments (all at speed 3). With even just Jendon, all 3 of those Gozantis will contribute to the fight and it's not worth/feasible for me to send something after them. The power it gives you over deployment and the squadron game is crazy for how simple it is.

But if you nerf relay, you have another problem that gets only bigger:

Take flotillas not to push squads and get activation padding, but PURELY for activation padding (and some comms net etc).

1 minute ago, duck_bird said:

I think relay squads would still be a worthwhile investment, given their strategic trait, non-trivial stats, and the ability to continue to extend your carrier range by distance 3.

I just get salty when this is an effective first 3 deployments (all at speed 3). With even just Jendon, all 3 of those Gozantis will contribute to the fight and it's not worth/feasible for me to send something after them. The power it gives you over deployment and the squadron game is crazy for how simple it is.

The problem I always had with that ruling is that the boost is quite expensive existing boosted comms. 11 points for less than distance 1 as boost.

We could discuss of course the opportunity cost between BC and EHB in those cases or the help relay gives to those ships without offensive retrofit. Curiously Yavaris is again the winner while at first glance imperials lose considering their easy access to offensive retrofit. But I didn't dig too much on that topic so calculate every difference.

IMHO if they nerf relay that way (and I don't say I am completely against it) I would like to see an errata removing relay from lamdas (maybe not from Jendon) and making them cheaper. I would go with BC.

53 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

The problem I always had with that ruling is that the boost is quite expensive existing boosted comms. 11 points for less than distance 1 as boost.

Curiously Yavaris is again the winner while at first glance imperials lose considering their easy access to offensive retrofit. But I didn't dig too much on that topic so calculate every difference.

Rebels have half the Relay power, keep in mind. And you have to buy BC over again for each ship, whereas Relay works for your whole fleet.

Three Gozantis with BC is 12 points, versus one Lambda at 15.

23 minutes ago, svelok said:

Rebels have half the Relay power, keep in mind. And you have to buy BC over again for each ship, whereas Relay works for your whole fleet.

Three Gozantis with BC is 12 points, versus one Lambda at 15.

That will completely depend on the build. Where you say three gozantis I say 1 quasar.

Again, I didn't dig in every difference. I just said that relay at activation range is BC+1 also limited to relay value, not squadron value. I agree about the fleet wide effect though but that is up to activation effectiveness/efficiency preferences.

3 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

That will completely depend on the build. Where you say three gozantis I say 1 quasar.

Again, I didn't dig in every difference. I just said that relay at activation range is BC+1 also limited to relay value, not squadron value. I agree about the fleet wide effect though but that is up to activation effectiveness/efficiency preferences.

Yeah, and that's my point exactly - it would be a different route to the same thing, that would benefit some fleet builds more than others. Whereas a bunch of Gozantis want a Lambda, a Quasar just wants Boosted Comms. So the fact that the total distance is similar doesn't make a huge difference.

Besides, the two would stack, giving you Long plus distance 3 over again.

5 hours ago, ovinomanc3r said:

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

Oooh... madlibs! (mortal goose) when Jerjerrod (god) barked her toe hard.

Thread attempts to praise the (many) positive aspects of the game. Promptly is hijacked by dubious balance gripes... Well at least I know I'm not stuck in some kind of computer generated dream world. Ha!

11 minutes ago, SkyCake said:

Thread attempts to praise the (many) positive aspects of the game. Promptly is hijacked by dubious balance gripes... Well at least I know I'm not stuck in some kind of computer generated dream world. Ha!

It's the internet.

Too much positivity would break it.

Where would that leave us?

6 hours ago, duck_bird said:

I think relay squads would still be a worthwhile investment, given their strategic trait, non-trivial stats, and the ability to continue to extend your carrier range by distance 3.

I just get salty when this is an effective first 3 deployments (all at speed 3). With even just Jendon, all 3 of those Gozantis will contribute to the fight and it's not worth/feasible for me to send something after them. The power it gives you over deployment and the squadron game is crazy for how simple it is.

Jendon + 3 Gozantis is already nearly 100 pts with no squadrons, yet.

So...just so we're clear on this...your enemy is spending 1/4 of their total list on a tactic (much more than, obviously, as you then need to buy the fighters for it), and you are complaining that the tactic in question may be worth something? For 1/4 of a list's total cost, I would certainly hope it did something worthwhile...

22 minutes ago, xanderf said:

Jendon + 3 Gozantis is already nearly 100 pts with no squadrons, yet.

So...just so we're clear on this...your enemy is spending 1/4 of their total list on a tactic (much more than, obviously, as you then need to buy the fighters for it), and you are complaining that the tactic in question may be worth something? For 1/4 of a list's total cost, I would certainly hope it did something worthwhile...

Hey, that's not at all what I said.

My problem is that relay with a deployment like this, combined with the cheapness of flotillas, allows you to ignore core aspects of this game. If either relay had a limited range, or if flotillas didn't count towards whether or not you were tabled, I would be fine with this.

Armada's a pretty short ranged game. Ships need to be within 1 foot of each other to shoot at a minimum. Squads can't function fully without a carrier within 8-12 inches. Those are pretty core aspects of the game. Positioning your ships to take advantage of all of that is where so much of the strategy in this game comes from.

The three flotillas in my example aren't playing the same game. They're each making a bee-line for a different corner of the map, yet still contributing to the battle (through more than activation padding) from up to 6 feet away. It just doesn't fit with the rest of the game. I don't want my opponents 100 points of Gozantis/Jendon to be worthless - I'd just like them to be part of same game we're playing.

To deal with a carrier fleet, you either kill the squadrons, or you kill the carriers. In a fleet like this, you cannot kill those carriers.

I think flots not counting toward tabling would be a better approach. Sure, they can spend 100 points to have their mini carriers out of the fight, but that just means I only have to kill the 1-2 combat ships to get all those points and end the game.

1 hour ago, duck_bird said:

Hey, that's not at all what I said.

My problem is that relay with a deployment like this, combined with the cheapness of flotillas, allows you to ignore core aspects of this game. If either relay had a limited range, or if flotillas didn't count towards whether or not you were tabled, I would be fine with this.

Armada's a pretty short ranged game. Ships need to be within 1 foot of each other to shoot at a minimum. Squads can't function fully without a carrier within 8-12 inches. Those are pretty core aspects of the game. Positioning your ships to take advantage of all of that is where so much of the strategy in this game comes from.

The three flotillas in my example aren't playing the same game. They're each making a bee-line for a different corner of the map, yet still contributing to the battle (through more than activation padding) from up to 6 feet away. It just doesn't fit with the rest of the game. I don't want my opponents 100 points of Gozantis/Jendon to be worthless - I'd just like them to be part of same game we're playing.

To deal with a carrier fleet, you either kill the squadrons, or you kill the carriers. In a fleet like this, you cannot kill those carriers.

You might be surprised. Speed four Raiders, CR90s or a lone mc30 can absolutely call the Gozanti’s bluff, while being hard to catch themselves. The map isn’t that big. An early commitment could likely kill 2 of those flotillas, which in turn slows the squads and is perfectly cost-effective. As an Imperial fighter player, it’s happened to me plenty of times. But perhaps more importantly, relay is one of the Empire’s squad-related perks. We can’t fly heavy bombers, because there are none. We can’t pull off Yavaris/GH either. Relay is one of the best things we have going for us. In summary, don’t think of the flots as “untouchable;” think of them as “exposed,” and commit something to chase them down right from the start.

1 hour ago, duck_bird said:

My problem is that relay with a deployment like this, combined with the cheapness of flotillas, allows you to ignore core aspects of this game.

It occurs to me that I kind of specifically try to efficiently ignore or minimize the impact of some core aspects of the game when I list build. At least, if we're counting a 100-point expenditure as ignoring rather than mitigating or addressing. I think that's a pretty common thing, and I don't think it's necessarily bad as such. Not to say that people are explicitly thinking about that when they build a list, exactly, but from a certain point of view that's what a good list is all about. Look at it:

- Ranged lists like Ackbar swirls are trying to ignore short-ranged combat.

- Mothma MC30s are trying to ignore the squadron-on-squadron game.

- Aceholes are trying to ignore ship combat almost entirely and double down on bombers.

- Sloane is trying to ignore the need to balance fighters and bombers.

- Jerjerrod is trying to minimize the dependence on nav commands.

- Strategic-shenanigan doom pickles and fortress Interdictors both try to ignore the need to engage the enemy to win.

Now, it may be that Relay is too effective in addressing the carriers' vulnerability to combat ships, or the danger of losing all your squadron points to a tabling. I think you can even reasonably argue that this kind of Relay avoidance shenanigans leads to un-fun games. I just think the way you've formulated it above is flawed, is all.

1 hour ago, Truthiness said:

I think flots not counting toward tabling would be a better approach.

The more I consider it, the more I think this change addresses a whole bagful of issues, from Relay shenanigans to game length. It's simple, elegant, and resolves most of the common complaints without an extra page-long Errata entry. I think I'm going to try and get some test games in with this to see how it goes.

11 hours ago, Green Knight said:

But if you nerf relay, you have another problem that gets only bigger:

Take flotillas not to push squads and get activation padding, but PURELY for activation padding (and some comms net etc).

I still find flotillas for pure padding isn't the way to do it. They don't actually add enough for their cost. But I'm definitely willing to be convinced otherwise.

Also, while pure-and-onlyactivation padding seems effective when done by very good players, its also nearly uncounter-able from a less skilled player attempting to learn or change their strategy mid-game. And this makes for AWFUL experiences for learning players.

On 1/10/2018 at 5:46 PM, Ardaedhel said:

The more I consider it, the more I think this change addresses a whole bagful of issues, from Relay shenanigans to game length. It's simple, elegant, and resolves most of the common complaints without an extra page-long Errata entry. I think I'm going to try and get some test games in with this to see how it goes.

That's exactly how I got there. It's simple, addresses a number of issues, it's only a minor change, and it would still let people who currently use flotilla as activation padding continue to do so. It's just now hella risky to do a ton of flotillas and only one combat ship because you are DONE if that one ship goes down. You still have that activation padding, but now you better believe I'm throwing everything at that one ship, **** the consequences. You can only shoot 2 targets a turn. It even hits most Yavaris builds since they usually only have 2 lighter combat ships.

I've been looking at the Regionals data a little more closely. Yavaris squadrons continue to be a concern as their representation remains high. It's less insane than we saw at Worlds, but if I remember correctly, the Regionals data last year didn't really give much of a warning for the sheer stupid of Worlds. I mention that because it appears to pale in comparison to the flotilla representation. 50% of lists in the top 4 have 3+ flotillas, compared to just 22% of the at large population. This is spread across multiple fleet archetypes. Now maybe wave 7 does something to that. Pryce is a huge wild card in that mix.

On 1/9/2018 at 7:40 AM, Lemmiwinks86 said:

To complement that "B Team" you can use B-Wings as your squadrons

I want to see this happen!

On 1/8/2018 at 10:08 PM, 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!

But just an OK time to be an X-Wing player. I mean, we did get the ship of our dreams, but stuff from waves 1-11 are very not competitive.

I agree, Crabbok, this is a great game.

On 1/9/2018 at 6:57 AM, duck_bird said:

Regarding Flotilla Spam: I agree. ....

I think flotillas (and activation creep) could use some tweaking, but this could be done by adding only 1 Red Objective to the game that targets Flotillas specifically.

Call it SUPPLY CHAIN or SUPPLY & DEMAND or whatever

"Receive a Victory token for every ship destroyed which is a flotilla or has a scatter token."
Victory Token = 30 Points

Choose whatever VP total that seems reasonable. Because most people bring at least 1 flotilla, the risk is shared (or if you don't more power to you).

Adding this as a red objective helps by 1) creating an incentive to limit flotillas and 2) helping with the "Most Wanted" problem.

Discuss.

I like your name.

I love this game and think it's in a great place! I love this game more now then when I discovered it during Wave 2.

There are a few things I think could be tweaked though.

I remember from the last errata article they said they were changing things that were low risk with little counter play. I think flotillas not counting for tabling would add the risk and counter play that seems to be lacking.

9 minutes ago, Matt Antilles said:

I think flotillas not counting for tabling would add the risk and counter play that seems to be lacking.

I wish the FFG forums had a poll option. This "fix" comes up SO OFTEN, and there doesn't appear to be much opposition to it. I wonder just how many of us forumites (which typically means Armada super-fans) would like it to go that way. It would shake up the game incredibly...

The one thing I would add to the Flotillas don't prevent tabling rule is that they also can't be an objective ship. If only so we some red objectives other than Most Wanted.

Actually, the more I read and think about it, Jendon alone has really been the thorn in all my most frustrating Relay spam lists.

He's really really hard to snipe, singlehandedly allows gozantis to function from across the board, and punches at (or above) his points cost too.

I think he's the biggest offender.

But again, I love this game and those have been the only times I've been grumpy with it. I still think the flotillas for tabling tweak would be the easiest fix. Very non-invasive.