3 hours ago, The Jabbawookie said:

I love the X-wing analogy. It’s gonna be hard to nerf flotillas. If literally the only thing a GR-75 did was activate ... for 18 points... people would absolutely still bring it, and many already do.

As for relay dominating competitive play... I’ve asked twice previously for evidence relay is competitively unbalanced, or even meaningfully involved in most competitive lists. Until someone can give even anecdotal evidence of relay warping even their casual meta, all this falls flat. Really anything more than “well, this one game...” or “look how scary it is on paper...” would at least be a great starting point.

@Baltanok Do you happen to have any regionals data on Relay use? If you do I’d much appreciate it (if not, that’s fine too. )

I haven't gotten around to fixing that formula, nor do I think I will to be honest. If you have access to the data (if you don't have the link, I can provide it), you can dig it out of the lists. I went and did so for... a different audience. I concluded that Relay is above all an Imperial thing. Every single Imperial squadron heavy list in the top 4 brought Relay. This was always Jendon at a minimum. A few brought another Lambda. Rebels were split roughly down the middle. About half of squad heavy lists in the top 4 brought Relay, the other half did not.

So what does that mean? I think it comes down to 2 being the magic number for Relay. I think it's no coincidence that 2 is the magic number given that's the squad value of flotillas. I imagine the reason Rebels are split is because that requires a 30 point investment out of 134 which doesn't bring all that much to the fight besides Strategic, Relay, and a crap ton of hull. If they brought Relay, though, it was always 2. Imps is just a no brainer. Relay 2 for 20 points and you are also effectively duplicating the attack of your best squadron. You also have less reason to keep your flotillas even moderately close to the fight. With most of the Imp squad heavy lists being Sloane, you don't tend to need a BCC.

I think a combined Relay and flotilla nerf is warranted at this point. Relay already has a solution that just about everyone seems to like: the Relay squadron has to be within command range (be that regular medium or Boosted Comms long) of the ship issuing the command. That's a solid improvement to the current game state. Flotillas themselves are harder. They're so valuable for every kind of build that it's harder to pin down what would do the trick. In the end, though I trust FFG will come up with a well taylored solution. They're not as fast with these things as many of us would like, but it is better to err on the side of caution in my mind. Best to choose the least invasive method first.

5 hours ago, The Jabbawookie said:

If literally the only thing a GR-75 did was activate ... for 18 points... people would absolutely still bring it, and many already do.

GR-75 as an Offensive retrofit: Exhaust this card to (activate two squadrons OR pass a token OR slicer tools OR etc.) AND pass your activation, the other player activates a ship instead.
Flip this card upside down(SUPER EXHAUST) to prevent a ship from completing its movement. If you are dealt damage by five squadron dice OR an accuracy and four damage(variable by range) from a ship while this card is upside down, your opponent may choose to cancel all dice/remove all damage cards to discard this upgrade.

I'd take that for 18 points. NOTE: this is more of a joke than anything.

5 hours ago, The Jabbawookie said:

Do you happen to have any regionals data on Relay use? If you do I’d much appreciate it (if not, that’s fine too. )

Here you go:

All - 75/205 (37%)

Bottom Qtr- 21/60 (35%)

Top8 - 32/79 (41%)

Top4 - 18/41 (44%)

Win - 7/11 (64%)

Winners broken down by actual relay squads:

None - 4 (3R + 1I) (1 R-MSU; 1 Garm Pickle; 1 YGH; 1 BTA+Demo)

Jendon - 1 (ISD+4)

Jendon+Lam - 2 (ISD+4 ; Demo+QF+3+Tie bombers)

2 VCX - 3 (YGH x 3 - all with BCC, so at least 1 of the flots are near the fight)

3 VCX - 1 (Ackbar doom pickle, not max squads)

top 4, 120+ Squad points - Rebel 3/10, Imp 9/9 (mostly Jendon)

Given the sample size we're dealing with, don't place too much emphasis on the Win bracket. Also, what @Truthiness said.

32 minutes ago, Baltanok said:

Here you go:

All - 75/205 (37%)

Bottom Qtr- 21/60 (35%)

Top8 - 32/79 (41%)

Top4 - 18/41 (44%)

Win - 7/11 (64%)

Winners broken down by actual relay squads:

None - 4 (3R + 1I) (1 R-MSU; 1 Garm Pickle; 1 YGH; 1 BTA+Demo)

Jendon - 1 (ISD+4)

Jendon+Lam - 2 (ISD+4 ; Demo+QF+3+Tie bombers)

2 VCX - 3 (YGH x 3 - all with BCC, so at least 1 of the flots are near the fight)

3 VCX - 1 (Ackbar doom pickle, not max squads)

top 4, 120+ Squad points - Rebel 3/10, Imp 9/9 (mostly Jendon)

Given the sample size we're dealing with, don't place too much emphasis on the Win bracket. Also, what @Truthiness said.

All I take from this is that Garm is so OP that he doesn't even NEED Relay to win.

#NerfGarm

20 hours ago, Truthiness said:

I haven't gotten around to fixing that formula, nor do I think I will to be honest. If you have access to the data (if you don't have the link, I can provide it), you can dig it out of the lists. I went and did so for... a different audience. I concluded that Relay is above all an Imperial thing. Every single Imperial squadron heavy list in the top 4 brought Relay. This was always Jendon at a minimum. A few brought another Lambda. Rebels were split roughly down the middle. About half of squad heavy lists in the top 4 brought Relay, the other half did not.

So what does that mean? I think it comes down to 2 being the magic number for Relay. I think it's no coincidence that 2 is the magic number given that's the squad value of flotillas. I imagine the reason Rebels are split is because that requires a 30 point investment out of 134 which doesn't bring all that much to the fight besides Strategic, Relay, and a crap ton of hull. If they brought Relay, though, it was always 2. Imps is just a no brainer. Relay 2 for 20 points and you are also effectively duplicating the attack of your best squadron. You also have less reason to keep your flotillas even moderately close to the fight. With most of the Imp squad heavy lists being Sloane, you don't tend to need a BCC.

I think a combined Relay and flotilla nerf is warranted at this point. Relay already has a solution that just about everyone seems to like: the Relay squadron has to be within command range (be that regular medium or Boosted Comms long) of the ship issuing the command. That's a solid improvement to the current game state. Flotillas themselves are harder. They're so valuable for every kind of build that it's harder to pin down what would do the trick. In the end, though I trust FFG will come up with a well taylored solution. They're not as fast with these things as many of us would like, but it is better to err on the side of caution in my mind. Best to choose the least invasive method first.

Totally agree on, well pretty much everything. Relay very clearly needs to be brought into the games core, aka, using the strategic concept of range as part of how it works so that there are tactical position consideration when using Relay rather than the free for all it is now. In fact I recall when I first read about Relay this is actually how I thought it worked, even the word relay suggested that. I think this will ultimately be the FAQ fix.

As for Flotillas, for me the best solution I have heard so far is to make Flotillas count towards your squad point spending. This basically says, hey if you use a flotillas you will impact your squad builds, which I think will nip the "for activation spam" problem without really effecting it all that much as a carrier support.

1 hour ago, BigKahuna said:

As for Flotillas, for me the best solution I have heard so far is to make Flotillas count towards your squad point spending. This basically says, hey if you use a flotillas you will impact your squad builds, which I think will nip the "for activation spam" problem without really effecting it all that much as a carrier support.

This would have the opposite effect I'm afraid. By cutting into the squadron allowance, you're enforcing a 26 point minimum tax on bombers being remotely reliable, meaning you can now only bring 108 points of bombers to even use BCC. The result would be back to wave 1-2 days when squadrons were considered margin. It would probably be worse.

That in turn would make activation spam worse. If bomber builds are no longer threatening, why even bring squadron cover? Players would just use their "squadron" allowance on flotilla spam.

2 hours ago, Truthiness said:

This would have the opposite effect I'm afraid. By cutting into the squadron allowance, you're enforcing a 26 point minimum tax on bombers being remotely reliable, meaning you can now only bring 108 points of bombers to even use BCC. The result would be back to wave 1-2 days when squadrons were considered margin. It would probably be worse.

That in turn would make activation spam worse. If bomber builds are no longer threatening, why even bring squadron cover? Players would just use their "squadron" allowance on flotilla spam.

That is a pretty extreme exaggeration. You don't need bomber command for bombers to be reliable, black dice are already the most reliable die in a game. Besides 26 point overhead to be able to reroll bomber dice is dirt cheap. Consider for a second if there was a squad for 26 points that allowed you to re-roll all your bomber dice, plus it counted as an activation, plus it allowed you to command 2 other squadrons when it activated. That would be the single most auto-played squadron in the game and then some.

And I completely disagree on the second point. By making flotillas count towards squadron costs it means people who do use them for activation spam would have weak squadron screens resulting in even more people running squad/bomber lists to crush activation spam lists.

The primary and biggest issue with Flotilla spam is that is has no drawback, its why everyone uses it. If it counted towards squad cost it would mean that people who use flotillas for activation spam would have a vulnerability to heavy squadron lists creating the exact result we want. The option to have activation spawn, but with an actual drawback.

People mentioned earlier that activation spam has always been part of the game and this is true, CR90's spam lists for example. These lists however had major drawbacks, one of them was exactly this, they had a weak squadron game resulting in a major vulnerability. This is true about ALL other activation spam lists EXCEPT flotilla spam lists (because flotillas are dirt cheap).

13 minutes ago, BigKahuna said:

That is a pretty extreme exaggeration. You don't need bomber command for bombers to be reliable, black dice are already the most reliable die in a game. Besides 26 point overhead to be able to reroll bomber dice is dirt cheap. Consider for a second if there was a squad for 26 points that allowed you to re-roll all your bomber dice, plus it counted as an activation, plus it allowed you to command 2 other squadrons when it activated. That would be the single most auto-played squadron in the game and then some.

And I completely disagree on the second point. By making flotillas count towards squadron costs it means people who do use them for activation spam would have weak squadron screens resulting in even more people running squad/bomber lists to crush activation spam lists.

The primary and biggest issue with Flotilla spam is that is has no drawback, its why everyone uses it. If it counted towards squad cost it would mean that people who use flotillas for activation spam would have a vulnerability to heavy squadron lists creating the exact result we want. The option to have activation spawn, but with an actual drawback.

People mentioned earlier that activation spam has always been part of the game and this is true, CR90's spam lists for example. These lists however had major drawbacks, one of them was exactly this, they had a weak squadron game resulting in a major vulnerability. This is true about ALL other activation spam lists EXCEPT flotilla spam lists (because flotillas are dirt cheap).

Going to have to agree with Truthiness here. I tend to run low or no squadron, already using my flotillas to help in the activation game (as well as being one of the few people that runs Slicer Tools). If flotillas come out of the squadron allowance, I would dance with joy as my opponent's squadron fleets instantly get weaker. If I can beat 134 points of squadrons, I can CERTAINLY beat 108 points of squadrons (or less, 1 flotilla is a rare animal). I'm also a consistency nut and will not run Bombers without BCC (when I choose to use squadrons).

In short, I don't think taking flotillas from the squadron allowance does anything to fix flotillas, it just makes squadron lists worse. Personally, I'm sort of ok with that, but I'm also relatively vocal about my dislike for squadrons. That being said, I don't think it's good for the game. I'm very firmly #teamflotillasshouldntcountfortabling

15 minutes ago, BigKahuna said:

That is a pretty extreme exaggeration. You don't need bomber command for bombers to be reliable, black dice are already the most reliable die in a game. Besides 26 point overhead to be able to reroll bomber dice is dirt cheap. Consider for a second if there was a squad for 26 points that allowed you to re-roll all your bomber dice, plus it counted as an activation, plus it allowed you to command 2 other squadrons when it activated. That would be the single most auto-played squadron in the game and then some.

And I completely disagree on the second point. By making flotillas count towards squadron costs it means people who do use them for activation spam would have weak squadron screens resulting in even more people running squad/bomber lists to crush activation spam lists.

The primary and biggest issue with Flotilla spam is that is has no drawback, its why everyone uses it. If it counted towards squad cost it would mean that people who use flotillas for activation spam would have a vulnerability to heavy squadron lists creating the exact result we want. The option to have activation spawn, but with an actual drawback.

People mentioned earlier that activation spam has always been part of the game and this is true, CR90's spam lists for example. These lists however had major drawbacks, one of them was exactly this, they had a weak squadron game resulting in a major vulnerability. This is true about ALL other activation spam lists EXCEPT flotilla spam lists (because flotillas are dirt cheap).

I've had amazing success running no squads for about 10 months. And I'm doing it as Imperials, which is much harder than Rebels since you can take Mothma.

You don't need squads to win, and making this change weakens all squadron lists. I'd be so happy to see 36/46 less points of bombers when I play.

I've run heavy squadron and light squadron, depending on how I'm feeling at the moment. I also agree with @Truthiness that making flotillas part of squadron points just weakens the squad game and kills off bomber lists and (IMO) potentially Sloane as a commander.

You need flotillas to push squads occasionally, and I do remember The Before Times, when squadron lists weren't as prevalent as they previously were. Flotillas helped more squadrons see the table, which is a good thing as it gives you more lists/options.

Just now, Undeadguy said:

I've had amazing success running no squads for about 10 months. And I'm doing it as Imperials, which is much harder than Rebels since you can take Mothma.

You don't need squads to win, and making this change weakens all squadron lists. I'd be so happy to see 36/46 less points of bombers when I play.

I never suggested you needed squadrons to win, if you look at the top 8 lists from Worlds for example, its clear that all capital ship lists are very viable.

My point is that if Flotillas didn't exist people would still run heavy squad and bomber lists and had they released a 26 point squad that gave you an extra activation, allowed you to squad command 2 units and allowed you to re-roll all bomber dice in a 1-5 range everyone would have lost their **** because it would be totally OP. Right?

So I don't really see how making a flotilla a squad creates some sort of major problem.

2 minutes ago, BigKahuna said:

I never suggested you needed squadrons to win, if you look at the top 8 lists from Worlds for example, its clear that all capital ship lists are very viable.

My point is that if Flotillas didn't exist people would still run heavy squad and bomber lists and had they released a 26 point squad that gave you an extra activation, allowed you to squad command 2 units and allowed you to re-roll all bomber dice in a 1-5 range everyone would have lost their **** because it would be totally OP. Right?

So I don't really see how making a flotilla a squad creates some sort of major problem.

Yea it would if it followed all of the squadron rules. They are a ship. They move like a ship and reveal commands. You cannot retroactively change flotilla to squads in anyway now. You're argument doesn't hold weight because you are altering what we actually have to fit your POV.

Flotillas are not squads. There is no point in imagining an alternate universe where flotillas were actually squads and do all the flotilla things.

In this current state, making flotillas count as squadron points hurts squadron fleets. You don't just take 1 BCC for 26 points. They tend to have other upgrades like Toryn, EHB, or BH. You're also leaving out the Imps. 31 points for BCC, that leave 103 points for squads, or 80 if you want 2 flotillas and the data we have from regionals shows people taking 2 flotillas in their fleets. You end up nerfing all squad fleets and buffing no squad fleets by doing this.

In other words, you are limiting the fleet design and that is bad for the game.

I think BigKahuna and Undeadguy are both right. I also think that flotillas should either have their own phase or be put in with the squad phase. This gets rid of the activation padding, makes that 20pt squad pusher less uber and does not take away from squad points. I know that I am about the only person wanting this and there are probably a TON of issues with this, but it is my wish list. I am not a big fan of squads as fleet killers, I have been wrecked by a couple of fleets by their squads almost entirely, and it sucks. I also think ships should have had a built in counter to squads from the start.

Pardon my rambling but for me Flot spam and realy make this game less fun and less thematic for me , not enough to not want to play, but as a X-Wing player the stuff that made the game unfun there just snowballed to the point that I started playing Armada, played one game since picking up Armada. I know that I am not alone on X-Wing, it is so extremely meta and has been for a year or two and now there is hardly a ship played that has been on the big screen.

On the bright side, at least all the meta stuff in armada is iconic stuff. Things like the GR75, Xwings, Ackbar, ISDs, MC80’s are all big time Star Wars stuffs. So we have that going for us.

Just injecting a little positivity.

6 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

Just injecting a little positivity.

This is the Armada forums. Only salt please. No happiness.

But salt makes me happy. Its so delicious.

said in another thread.... how about getting flotillas to activate as a group of 2 or 3s?

to prevent over kill, each activation can only carry out one of each command (ie 1 sqn, 1 navigate etc)

So a large with 4 flotillas will only be 3 activation's (instead of the current 5)... which then level pegs it with two larges and a SAd

I thought this was the happy forum. X-Wing is for the salt/nerf requests, Legion is for the Hoobiest to talk down to us "casuals", LCG for the missing, IA for the chicken littles worried about Legion killing their game.

Personally I would rather see a counter in the form of a anti-flotilla flotilla, with a flotilla only, anti-flotilla upgrade, but if I were to go for a Nerf...

Let squadrons use their anti-squadron attack dice against Flotillas. Suddenly the Flotillas die just as easily as an ace squadron. Points wise that works for me, and gives flotillas a huge downside. Sure, you can still spam Flotillas, but 3 generic squadrons can melt it in a single activation.

1 hour ago, Cusm said:

I think BigKahuna and Undeadguy are both right. I also think that flotillas should either have their own phase or be put in with the squad phase. This gets rid of the activation padding, makes that 20pt squad pusher less uber and does not take away from squad points.

Clarification - @BigKahuna is actually arguing that flotillas should count towards the 134 points of squadrons in a list. If he were only arguing that they should activate in the squadron phase, the entire discussion wild be different. Incidentally, I'm not a fan of having them activate in the squadron phase, as that could really kill large ships and put us back all the way to the wave 2 meta, with Demolisher MSU dominating everything.

I'm also of the opinion that counting flotillas as squadron points doesn't help the big picture issue.

It does nerf Sloane, and 134 point bomber lists. But it does nothing to address the activation issues. People won't suddenly stop taking as many flotillas if they count towards the squadron allowance. They'll just stop taking squadrons.

Consider this: one of the dominant archetypes is a Boarding Teams Avenger ISD and 5 or 6 flotillas. Maybe a few squadrons, but not many, and often none at all.

The rebel equivalent is a loaded up Ackbar MC80 Defiance with 4 or 5 flotillas and a small A-Wing screen.

Any proposed fix for flotillas and the activation problems they pose has to address these types of fleets as well as the Yavaris/Gallant Haven bomber spam fleets. Making flotillas count towards the squadron allowance does nothing to address the BTA or doom pickle archetypes.

I was being contrary, I know both had differing opinions. Flotillas are one of those that there is not a easy solution and most proposed open up other issues.

Also it shouldn’t be discounted that you don’t want to remove Flotillas completely - outside of activation and swuadding , they have unique fleet supports that should be a part of the game... actually activating last further removes slicer tools from thoughts...

2 hours ago, Cusm said:

I also think ships should have had a built in counter to squads from the start.

Little box next to the hull value.

23 minutes ago, The Jabbawookie said:

Little box next to the hull value.

Counter, not anti-squad attack.

3 hours ago, Madaghmire said:

But salt makes me happy. Its so delicious.