1 minute ago, PT106 said:

I'm not convinced EWS is going to be a right upgrade on the ISD simply because ISD side arcs are short and there are many positions where a ship or a commanded squadron has a choice of an arc to attack.

But covering that massive front arc would force your opponent to squeeze into the smaller side arcs, grouping their fighters tightly together (and increasing the likelihood that some of them will be in two arcs for flak). It also makes that first bombing run harder, when squads are coming from further away and might have trouble reaching the side arcs. It also makes it easier to set up multiple ships to hit them with flak. When the squads are bunched in front of the ISD, unless you have blue anti-squad dice, just the ISD will be flakking (and not shooting at ships). If you push them to the side, a friendly Gozanti can hit the fighters for extra damage.

I mean, when it really comes down to it, if you're taking a no-squad list you're kind of asking to be killed by bombers. I'm only speaking to the very extreme examples, like an Adar/ Yavaris /Relay triple-tap from across the table. Really, it takes no skill to set up a basic triple-tap (I would posit that there is a large amount of skill in proper placement of the squads, target priority, etc., but just setting it up is pretty easy), and the commanding ship is never in any real danger. It isn't so much the current Relay rules that are the problem, it's the use of Relay with floats and Yavaris that are the problem. And those could be two simple fixes:

Yavaris - When activating squadrons within Close-Medium range. . .attack twice instead of moving.

Flotillas - Flotillas do not count as ships when determining whether your fleet has been destroyed.

So go ahead and take a single ship with six flotillas. If that ship dies, your fleet dies. Sure, you could take a Raider or CR-90 to do what a Flotilla currently does, but for twice the cost.

17 minutes ago, PT106 said:

I would respectfully but strongly disagree with this statement as it doesn't correlate with my experience.

I guess that depends of the fleet. Again from my experience it's nearly impossible to get a 1-10 loss with a good double ISD fleet.

1) You must have missed the other part of my post in which I said with enough skill you can for sure do well- but the onus is on you to not make a single mistake

” Sure, you can win squadronless or with minimal fighters, but you sure as heck are fighting a tougher battle than the guy who can double tap b-wings from across the board, effectively hitting you with an mc30 double arc in individual attacks from a platform that can shrug off most attacks against it, while keeping your actual “combat” ships safe... “

2) I don’t quite understand how you see that? I was pretty proud of my double ISD fleet, and it got stomped very easily by aces- I lost an ISD in a single round back to back. Granted, as I noted I made some serious mistakes- I deviated from my plan of slow rolling and just flaking squads when I saw an opening to pounce on yavaris-which I missed by 1mm. Missing that shot allowed my other ISD to get eliminated that round from nearly full health, and I killed Yavaris the next round but it was too late as Riekaan got him the activation needed to kill the other ISD. The MC30 didn’t take a single shot at an ISD in that game. Maybe it’s just me but I don’t think a few squads should take out 2 ISD’s in 2 rounds with no ship support

6 minutes ago, reegsk said:

But covering that massive front arc would force your opponent to squeeze into the smaller side arcs, grouping their fighters tightly together (and increasing the likelihood that some of them will be in two arcs for flak). It also makes that first bombing run harder, when squads are coming from further away and might have trouble reaching the side arcs.

A fair point. However I'm not sure it's worth the points just for that (given that the alternative increases ship durability and is cheaper).

7 minutes ago, reegsk said:

When the squads are bunched in front of the ISD, unless you have blue anti-squad dice, just the ISD will be flakking (and not shooting at ships)

Well, now we're talking about setting up ship's approach to get overlapping flak fields. It's not easy, but is certainly doable. Don't forget that gunnery team ISD can do flak AND shoot a ship in a front arc. And squadrons within overlapping flak fields of 2 ISDs are likely to take around 2 damage per round.

10 minutes ago, reegsk said:

I mean, when it really comes down to it, if you're taking a no-squad list you're kind of asking to be killed by bombers. I'm only speaking to the very extreme examples, like an Adar/ Yavaris /Relay triple-tap from across the table.

Extreme bomber lists are an unfavorable matchup, I don't disagree here. However, the goal is this case would be to mitigate points loss (which is perfectly doable) and to win big in other matchups. As far as triple-tap goes... I would expect triple-tapping Luke to be dead after one round of bombing my flagship.

11 minutes ago, MandalorianMoose said:

You must have missed the other part of my post in which I said with enough skill you can for sure do well- but the onus is on you to not make a single mistake

Well, I'm not saying that going squadronless is the list is easy to fly. However I believe that this approach can produce results in the hands of the skilled player even if going after equally skilled opponents .

13 minutes ago, MandalorianMoose said:

I was pretty proud of my double ISD fleet, and it got stomped very easily by aces

Do you mind if I'll ask you about the list you were flying and anti squadron plan/upgrades that you had there? Cause even if going squadronless one does need to have a plan to deal with squadrons.

2 minutes ago, PT106 said:

Do you mind if I'll ask you about the list you were flying and anti squadron plan/upgrades that you had there? Cause even if going squadronless one does need to have a plan to deal with squadrons.

Cy-meanies (397/400)

Empire

Commander: Darth Vader

Objectives: Most Wanted, Contested Outpost, Solar Corona

[flagship] Imperial Star Destroyer Cymoon 1 Refit (112)

- Darth Vader (36)

- Avenger (5)

- Strat Advisor (4)

- Spinal Armament (9)

- XI7 Turbolasers (6)

- Gunnery Team (7)

= 179 total points

Imperial Star Destroyer Cymoon 1 Refit (112)

- Intel Officer (7)

- Spinal Armament (9)

- XI7 Turbolasers (6)

- Gunnery Team (7)

= 141 total points

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23)

- Comms Net (2)

= 25 total points

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23)

- Comms Net (2)

= 25 total points

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23)

- Suppressor (4)

= 27 total points

My anti-squad Plan has been to slow roll and overlap with double black flak to make the squadrons retreat- but when I saw the potential to nuke yavaris round 2 I took it- and paid dearly for missing the shot. I won my first round 10-1, second round 9-2, and then got tabled final round vs aces. Again, I should have just avoided combat and gone for the 5-6, but with several people in the 19 to 18 point range after round 2 it woulda probably just knocked us both out of contention- something I actually would have been ok with looking back on it

4 minutes ago, MandalorianMoose said:

My anti-squad Plan has been to slow roll and overlap with double black flak to make the squadrons retreat

Well.. I would be fair - running a fleet like this IS asking to be murdered by squads. You spent 0 points for antisquadron defence, do not have blue antiflak dice (so the job of avoiding overlapping flak fields is much easier for opponent), you have no way of rerolling your flak dice, both of your ISDs are basic 11 hull ones and you do not have any other threats, so ISD is the obvious bombing target.

For comparison - in the fleet I'm running my ISDs do have 17 and 14 hull (so they can potentially survive extra round), I do run Kallus/QLT combo (spending points and a valuable officer slot on it), I have blue/black and blue/blue (+ optional Kallus black) flak that is rerollable either via Ordnance Experts or Leading Shots and i have a Raider that is presenting a credible threat to squadrons to be prioritized for a kill. My plan is to kill the main ships (including non-flotilla flagship) and to push enough damage onto squadrons to either kill them outright or to force them to disengage. Once squadrons are uncommanded they're going to be a much lesser threat.

42 minutes ago, MandalorianMoose said:

2) I don’t quite understand how you see that? I was pretty proud of my double ISD fleet, and it got stomped very easily by aces- I lost an ISD in a single round back to back. Granted, as I noted I made some serious mistakes- I deviated from my plan of slow rolling and just flaking squads when I saw an opening to pounce on yavaris-which I missed by 1mm. Missing that shot allowed my other ISD to get eliminated that round from nearly full health, and I killed Yavaris the next round but it was too late as Riekaan got him the activation needed to kill the other ISD. The MC30 didn’t take a single shot at an ISD in that game. Maybe it’s just me but I don’t think a few squads should take out 2 ISD’s in 2 rounds with no ship support

This sounds like Nathan's list? The MC30 quite frequently won't shoot. In my experience with the list (which is admittedly one game played against, a couple observed), the MC30 is a threat and small ship hunter that can't be ignored, and that's good enough sometimes. Your problem is more with Yavaris and the bwing/luke dice. The absolute nature of Intel also contributes, a handful of fighters would be useless and ignored in favor of bombing.

In the long term of the game, MY opinion is that titles are too powerful and unique to stay in the game forever. They simply restrict design too much. Everything that is added in the game has to account for Demo(nerfed), Yavaris, Avenger, GH, Admo, and numerous other powerful effects that are only available to one faction and one ship. Something has to give to avoid stagnation, and I would prefer it not be solved by power creep in new content.

Squadron bomber dice rerolls are good, really good, really really really good. Compared to the opportunity, point, and die costs on something like OE or LS, the range restriction on BCC/TF probably isn't enough. I think this is attempted to be addressed by EWS, so I'm holding judgement. Really some sort of charge count per turn to limit the value would have been a good idea, but we shall see.

Look on the bright side: this particular variant, having no GH, will "usually" get shredded by an Imperial antisquad build. As was mentioned, matchups are key.

Yeah, an Ace-hole list can burn down an ISD in about one round, which is pretty crazy.

But again, doesn't that reflect the lore of the galaxy this is happening in? Heck, there's an entire book series about a squadron that runs around blowing up ISDs all day long. The only thing that should be able to stop them is fighters. If you're taking no squads, you're taking the risk that you'll pair up against a player who has tons of bombers. Of my three opponents with this list, all three rounds had a small contingent of fighters (Rebel A-Wing variety pack, and the Imperial equivalent). While this obviously didn't stand a chance against 134pts of squads with Yavaris, it forced me to be more careful with fighter placement and I had to pay attention to where Jan was, because she couldn't be everywhere. That's partially why my first game was so close - Luke was trying to go after Admonition solo, and while he did kill it eventually , it wasn't the single round of bombing that it would have been if the entire gang piled on (which they ultimately had to in the end).

If you're not going to spend any points on combating squads, then you can't really get upset when you get slaughtered by squads. Relying on flak without any way to improve it will not win you the game. You need to be rolling two dice (blue or black) to increase the likelihood of at least one damage, and you have to have more than one ship flakking, because otherwise you're doing one point of damage to each squad per round, and you're not going to last the five rounds it will take to kill Luke or Ten Nunb (or even a regular B-Wing backed by Jan). And slow-rolling just increases the number of rounds I get to shoot you. Even if you manage to kill all of my squads (unlikely with just flak), you'll be trading your flagship, which leaves me up on points. And chances are that I'll have more activations than you do, so black die flak won't even be hitting often. The Adar triple-tap ship can attack and fly out of range, then untap and wait for you to move before double-tapping. The other squads I want to double-tap with I just place out of range in front of you, and they do the same thing. And I can simply rotate through my squads to prevent any of them from getting too chewed up, which is easy enough considering they'll take a max of one damage per turn.

18 minutes ago, reegsk said:

Yeah, an Ace-hole list can burn down an ISD in about one round, which is pretty crazy.

Full A-holes with BCC support - yes, one round per regular ISD, 1.5 rounds per Motti ISD. Fortunately, nowadays people are usually running variations of A-holes that is better suited against squadrons.

21 minutes ago, reegsk said:

If you're not going to spend any points on combating squads, then you can't really get upset when you get slaughtered by squads.

This. Keep in mind that one can spend points on combating squads even in a squadronless list. Ideally squadronless list shouldn't expect to kill any squads, however (in my mind) to be effective it should be able to do enough damage in two rounds of flakking to force at least a portion of squads to retreat.

37 minutes ago, AdmiralYor said:

Squadron bomber dice rerolls are good, really good, really really really good. Compared to the opportunity and point costs on something like OE or LS, the range restriction on BCC/TF probably isn't enough. I think this is attempted to be addressed by EWS, so I'm holding judgement. Really some sort of charge count per turn to limit the value would have been a good idea, but we shall see.

Look on the bright side: this particular variant, having no GH, will "usually" get shredded by an Imperial antisquad build. As was mentioned, matchups are key.

I feel like we already have some tools that can be used to get around these problems. H9s and Sensor Teams can be great for hunting flotillas, or even pestering an ISD (lock that Brace, son!). EWS protects against small ship swarm and bombers, at the sacrifice of being weaker against a big ship (although Demo and BTVenger get around ECM anyway). I think the new meta will push us to think about the tools we already have in new and creative ways that will negate some of the current big problems, without gearing so heavily toward them that you would lose against anything else.

2 hours ago, reegsk said:

If you're not going to spend any points on combating squads, then you can't really get upset when you get slaughtered by squads.

1 hour ago, PT106 said:

Full A-holes with BCC support - yes, one round per regular ISD, 1.5 rounds per Motti ISD. Fortunately, nowadays people are usually running variations of A-holes that is better suited against squadrons.

It isn't really just "squads" that are killing an ISD in a single round. It is a very specific set of interactions restricted to using certain ship, with a certain title, typically with a certain officer, with certain squadrons. That is a good chunk of a list that will never change unless something superior for the archtype comes out.

From a balance perspective, even if you release upgrades to conditionally counter the tactic. You won't arrive at a meta shift because at best you have achieved parity. The requirements for being countered is getting the matchup and your opponent meeting the conditional to counter. For instance, using a Vader raider to remove Yavaris is a conditional counter to Yavaris. Raiding and slicers are conditional counters as well. The antidote is almost always cheaper than the poison though.

I am by no means saying that the list is uncounterable or unbeatable, it does have very few unfavorable matchups though. What I am looking for is something to move the meta along. The only reason to ever stop using the interactions as they stand right now would be if is countered so hard that just drawing the matchup guarantees a loss(not fun for anyone), something with empirically better bomber damage is released(this seems bad), or breaking the interaction. I don't think anyone wants to see Armada become a power creep game.

I'm about 90% done with my data sheet rebuild. I've taken the concepts of the wonderful CC manager to create a more automated spreadsheet. List inputs are as simple as selecting from the drop down menu. From there, it automatically calculates fleet points, squadron points, and can be used to track whatever upgrades we like. There is no longer any need for multiple sheets for different placement brackets. The data formulas automatically filter by placement to calculate the general population, the top 8, the top4, and the winners. Here's a preview:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14kjCf7_-KjTjAqMyUrXayZI8u9oBlqDyMLbYAMeaMxk/edit?usp=drivesdk&ouid=118040462678748378833

Did we get the lists from the other regionals?

4 minutes ago, xero989 said:

Did we get the lists from the other regionals?

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/269259-alberta-regional-myth-games-03feb18-results/

48 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/269259-alberta-regional-myth-games-03feb18-results/

I just need to enter them now. Unfortunately, we did not get a comprehensive list from FFG HQ.

12 minutes ago, Baltanok said:

I just need to enter them now. Unfortunately, we did not get a comprehensive list from FFG HQ.

We never do...

On 2/6/2018 at 9:36 AM, MandalorianMoose said:

Maybe it’s just me but I don’t think a few squads should take out 2 ISD’s in 2 rounds with no ship support

We are talking two Squadrons worth of fighters that are built to sink ships with nothing relevant of yours to counter them or hold them at bay. Thematically in this situation it is entirely possible to sink your ISD’s rather efficiently without support. I mean we saw what was less than a dozen y-wings with ion bombs do to an ISD in rogue one and it took a matter of seconds.

For real modern examples do you know how many battles lead to a decisive victory in WW2 simply because one side was not able to get their planes in the air to defend the carriers/ships. Small craft with large explosive payloads are meant to take out big ships it’s that simple.

6 hours ago, Brikhause said:

For real modern examples do you know how many battles lead to a decisive victory in WW2 simply because one side was not able to get their planes in the air to defend the carriers/ships. Small craft with large explosive payloads are meant to take out big ships it’s that simple.

This. Just look at the Battle of Midway. The Japanese had insufficient fighter craft to combat American bombers, and their ships lacked proper AA weapons to shoot them down. The end result was all four Japanese carriers and a heavy cruiser destroyed, versus one carrier and a destroyer. Now if they had taken some TIE squadrons, or had a few Raider-Is with Kallus close at hand. . .

7 hours ago, Brikhause said:

We are talking two Squadrons worth of fighters that are built to sink ships with nothing relevant of yours to counter them or hold them at bay. Thematically in this situation it is entirely possible to sink your ISD’s rather efficiently without support. I mean we saw what was less than a dozen y-wings with ion bombs do to an ISD in rogue one and it took a matter of seconds.

For real modern examples do you know how many battles lead to a decisive victory in WW2 simply because one side was not able to get their planes in the air to defend the carriers/ships. Small craft with large explosive payloads are meant to take out big ships it’s that simple.

While I agree somewhat WW2 was when air power was just leaving its infancy and finding its place in the armed forces. Not every country was sold on its dominance because it didn’t play a huge part in WW1 other than recon. If you look at the AAA at the time for ships it was very minimal and by the time it was apparent that air power would reign supreme the Japanese were starved for resources to be able to adapt to the changes.

7 hours ago, Brikhause said:

We are talking two Squadrons worth of fighters that are built to sink ships with nothing relevant of yours to counter them or hold them at bay. Thematically in this situation it is entirely possible to sink your ISD’s rather efficiently without support. I mean we saw what was less than a dozen y-wings with ion bombs do to an ISD in rogue one and it took a matter of seconds.

For real modern examples do you know how many battles lead to a decisive victory in WW2 simply because one side was not able to get their planes in the air to defend the carriers/ships. Small craft with large explosive payloads are meant to take out big ships it’s that simple.

I strangely wanted to play with all the new toys that had come out two days before, and while I did well, I was not prepared for uber min/maxed squads in a list that was relatively unchanged since wave 4. I realize this, which is why I will be taking Riekaan Aces to my own regionals.

#WinAtAllCosts

24 minutes ago, ripper998 said:

While I agree somewhat WW2 was when air power was just leaving its infancy and finding its place in the armed forces. Not every country was sold on its dominance because it didn’t play a huge part in WW1 other than recon. If you look at the AAA at the time for ships it was very minimal and by the time it was apparent that air power would reign supreme the Japanese were starved for resources to be able to adapt to the changes.

Ummmmm that logic doesn't make sense. Japan didn't recognize air power is the future of warfare so they didn't equip their ships with flak, but they also attacked Pearl Harbor in a massive surprise attack with hundreds of planes? The Japanese used air superiority to gain control over much of Asia. They defeated British, Australian, and Dutch allies with a combination of ships and planes. It wasn't until Midway where Japanese lost their carriers and couldn't maintain control with their fighters. At that point, they had essentially lost the war, and just needed to be pushed back to Japan.

Germany also knew of it's importance and formed the Luftwaffe, which conformed to the ideology of Blitzkrieg.

There was also the RAF and the Battle of Britain, which lasted for weeks and involved thousands of planes on both sides.

The countries that didn't have a strong air presence either didn't have the technology and production lines to make planes, or were occupied by enemy forces.

8 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

There was also the RAF and the Battle of Britain, which lasted for weeks and involved thousands of planes on both sides.

*Months, or a full year if you ask German Historians.

8 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

There was also the RAF and the Battle of Britain, which lasted for weeks and involved thousands of planes on both sides.

*Months, or a full year if you ask German Historians.

Fortunately, this is a game and not a historic simulation.

Armada needs to have what works from a game standpoint first - with "realism" a distant second, if at all.

3 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

Ummmmm that logic doesn't make sense. Japan didn't recognize air power is the future of warfare so they didn't equip their ships with flak, but they also attacked Pearl Harbor in a massive surprise attack with hundreds of planes? The Japanese used air superiority to gain control over much of Asia. They defeated British, Australian, and Dutch allies with a combination of ships and planes. It wasn't until Midway where Japanese lost their carriers and couldn't maintain control with their fighters. At that point, they had essentially lost the war, and just needed to be pushed back to Japan.

Germany also knew of it's importance and formed the Luftwaffe, which conformed to the ideology of Blitzkrieg.

There was also the RAF and the Battle of Britain, which lasted for weeks and involved thousands of planes on both sides.

The countries that didn't have a strong air presence either didn't have the technology and production lines to make planes, or were occupied by enemy forces.

Japan didnt recognize the power of air nor that the carrier projects power. Yes they attacked pearl as a suprise attack but they didnt consider the carrier as the center of their fleet as did the americans did later in the way The battleship was their center piece. Look up the K antai Kessen doctrine as its what Japan followed up to after the battle of midway.

Also I dont use the battle in europe to compare to armada fleet/squadron action as it was mostly land based.

1 hour ago, ripper998 said:

Japan didnt recognize the power of air nor that the carrier projects power. Yes they attacked pearl as a suprise attack but they didnt consider the carrier as the center of their fleet as did the americans did later in the way The battleship was their center piece. Look up the K antai Kessen doctrine as its what Japan followed up to after the battle of midway.

Also I dont use the battle in europe to compare to armada fleet/squadron action as it was mostly land based.

Yep this.

Although Japan had a very good Air Force at the start of WW2. In upper doctrine, they down-played the importance of air and carriers to their demise.

They also notably lacked appreciable AA on their ships up until the end of the war, which was too late. Whereas American ships were bristling with AA mounts.