I Have You Now - Not-so-new (but still opinionated) Armada blog

By Green Knight, in Star Wars: Armada

Posted at
21 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

Gauntlet: http://armadaihaveyounow.blogspot.no/2018/03/wave-7-squadrons-mandalorian-gauntlet.html

The Aggressor at 16 pts is crap. The Firespray is not crap, but it's HUGELY expensive at 18 pts. The Decimator is 22, but it's Heavy, and slower. So compared to these guys the pricing is probably OK. But those squadrons were made with Rhymer in mind, and Rhymer is no more, so essentially every Imp Rogue is overcosted, and the Gauntlet is no exception.

Sloane-For-Rogues when?

Or, like, Howlrunner-For-Rogues. Imperial-Flight-Controllers-For-Rogues. Something.

Posted at

If the Aggressor had swarm instead of counter it would see play. The problem is for 16 points it has no synergy with other imperial fighters. It's why generic defenders don't see more play as well I think.

Posted at

28 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

Vassal CC r3 battle report: http://armadaihaveyounow.blogspot.no/2018/03/vassal-corellian-conflict-campaign-blog_14.html

[...]

Sorry again, for the slow play. I used to be terrible considering my speed in armada games. I have really become a normal player within the last two years.

I don't know why I lapsed back into bad old habbits. Maybe, it was because I had no plan for your fleet AND I was playing against a superior opponent. This let to decision paralysis (and bad decsions) during deployment. Which made stuff worse. More decision paralysis.

In the end it was not necessary at all: We now know that I will beat you even with me making terrible decisions in the early game :P Just kidding. I will be quicker the next time. Promise.

Further take away from this game: The Aspiration title is so cool! The ship got two Davastator volleys, one of them a 12 (!) damage +1 acc monstrosity. Still this did not touch its hull.

Posted at
Just now, Darth Veggie said:

Sorry again, for the slow play. I used to be terrible considering my speed in armada games. I have really become a normal player within the last two years.

I don't know why I lapsed back into bad old habbits. Maybe, it was because I had no plan for your fleet AND I was playing against a superior opponent. This let to decision paralysis (and bad decsions) during deployment. Which made stuff worse. More decision paralysis.

In the end it was not necessary at all: We now know that I will beat you even with me making terrible decisions in the early game :P Just kidding. I will be quicker the next time. Promise.

Further take away from this game: The Aspiration title is so cool! The ship got two Davastator volleys, one of them a 12 (!) damage +1 acc monstrosity. Still this did not touch its hull.

I found the slow start a bit confusing at first, bc you have all sorts of advantages...so for a little bit I wondered what your evil plan was...but it was so evil and cunning you didn't even know what it was :D

Aspiration is really nice. It can also reliably live trough BTA.

I think this game also proves that my fleet has very little resemblance to my WC fleet: yes, it has Devastator, but the WC list is built purely to abuse last-first and Intel Officer/XI7. This one definitely doesn't.

Posted at
4 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

[...]

Aspiration is really nice. It can also reliably live trough BTA.

[...]

True! And more to it: People complained about the defense tokens set of the MC75. It seemed to be less good than those of MC80H1/ISD. However, with Aspiration you don't need a second redirect. Of course this requires that your stripped hull zones are not attacked. BUT on the other hand it has the additional advantage that it does not need to give a s**t about XI7.

Posted at

You were slow? Maybe a virus affected you. One you have got during a match against another player... :P

Posted at
1 hour ago, Green Knight said:

I still haven't reviewed some key w7 upgrades. I feel I need to play them more before I can comment on them.

In the meantime, I've taken the opportunity to slag NK-7s, calling them THE WORST card in Armada: https://armadaihaveyounow.blogspot.no/2018/03/wave-2-upgrades-nk-7-ion-cannons.html

General ideas I had reading this:

1)Cost discount upgrade for ion over a price point, or maybe all. Most ion upgrades are pretty overpriced. It's possible the intent was to make them so great they are worth the price. So it's a question of if they just call the old ion cards dead a fix it moving forward, or try to go back and buff the old cards. HIE, LS, and SW7(situational) are the only ones I would say are worth their cost right now.

a)Maybe a way to swap out ion upgrades a la Chimera? Most of them are really good in very very specific situations. Maybe officer Garm(give ion slot, allowed to swap)?

2)Upgrade to allow crit effects to activate sooner in the attack process, probably a weapon team and exhaust for opportunity costs.

Posted at

Great battle reports. Thanks for sharing.

That looks like a great space for Armada battles. So much room!

Posted at
48 minutes ago, Democratus said:

Great battle reports. Thanks for sharing.

That looks like a great space for Armada battles. So much room!

Definitely the best venue I've ever played in!

Posted at
5 hours ago, Democratus said:

Great battle reports. Thanks for sharing.

That looks like a great space for Armada battles. So much room!

Agreed!

So so what are some tips for combatting these Raddus builds? Try to prevent the flotillas/small ships from getting around you?

Posted at
On 3/26/2018 at 9:23 PM, AlexW said:

So so what are some tips for combatting these Raddus builds? Try to prevent the flotillas/small ships from getting around you?

In my experience the entire way to deal with Raddus is to make the drop suboptimal. The easiest way to do that, especially since most Raddus builds are relatively light on squadrons, is to bring squadrons of your own and have them moderately dispersed in a protective bubble around the ship you most want to protect or the ship you expect the Raddus player to use as a drop point. Beyond that, there are a couple more, more difficult options that can be brought to bear. The first is figure out a way to make the Raddus player's intended drop target unappealing. They often are locked into one specific target ship in your fleet, so if you can edge them away from that ship they may make a mistake that you can exploit. The final two options are very difficult, if the Raddus player is good. Option 1 is try to assassinate those flotillas on the way in, which assumes the Raddus player is only feeding you one ship at a time/as many ships as you can kill at a time, which is rare. The other option, usually even more difficult than bringing down the drop point ship, is assassinating Raddus himself. Periodically you may encounter a Raddus flagship that is weak enough and far enough forward to allow this, so these opportunities should be jumped on, if only to force an early drop. Flipside, this is exceedingly difficult if the Raddus player demonstrates even a modicum of caution and/or places him on a survivable ship like Admonition , but it is an option that can occur.

Posted at
1 hour ago, GiledPallaeon said:

In my experience the entire way to deal with Raddus is to make the drop suboptimal. The easiest way to do that, especially since most Raddus builds are relatively light on squadrons, is to bring squadrons of your own and have them moderately dispersed in a protective bubble around the ship you most want to protect or the ship you expect the Raddus player to use as a drop point. Beyond that, there are a couple more, more difficult options that can be brought to bear. The first is figure out a way to make the Raddus player's intended drop target unappealing. They often are locked into one specific target ship in your fleet, so if you can edge them away from that ship they may make a mistake that you can exploit. The final two options are very difficult, if the Raddus player is good. Option 1 is try to assassinate those flotillas on the way in, which assumes the Raddus player is only feeding you one ship at a time/as many ships as you can kill at a time, which is rare. The other option, usually even more difficult than bringing down the drop point ship, is assassinating Raddus himself. Periodically you may encounter a Raddus flagship that is weak enough and far enough forward to allow this, so these opportunities should be jumped on, if only to force an early drop. Flipside, this is exceedingly difficult if the Raddus player demonstrates even a modicum of caution and/or places him on a survivable ship like Admonition , but it is an option that can occur.

Yeah, I'd agree that most Raddus players worth their salt don't let him die until at least AFTER the drop. I'd hesitate to say it's uncounterable, just really difficult. Squadron blockers and caution are probably the best options, I'd guess. Spreading out to prevent getting several ships attacked helps too, and as DCaps and TRCs are things, you can hit from a much longer distance than expected.

Posted at
On ‎3‎/‎26‎/‎2018 at 8:23 PM, AlexW said:

Agreed!

So so what are some tips for combatting these Raddus builds? Try to prevent the flotillas/small ships from getting around you?

First of all, I think the success of Raddus fleets is showing just how important deployment advantage is. You can have fewer deployments in your fleet, but since Raddus gives you the very last deployment, it is a huge deal. Is there a way to mess with Raddus' deployment advantage?

Squadron blockers would be one way. Another would be an Interdictor that can place a Gravity Well token that you can use to anchor your fleet. Remember, Gravity Well tokens stay on the board and distance 1-3 is a significant amount of space. Is having to deploy at Speed 0 a deterrent to the Raddus bomb? If they deployed aggressively, the Raddus ship WILL receive at least one attack where they have no use of defense tokens (if they are first player, the Raddus ship can't go first and if they are second player, you get first activation). Just wondering out loud...

Posted at

Every time I've gone against Pryce it has gone well for me. Though each time it happened I either had more activations or was 1st player.

Knowing that the key enemy ship won't move till last on a given turn frees me up to walk up to it with several of my own ships - assured that I will be able to open fire and then leave it's primary arc before it is able to move and shoot.

Without activation advantage AND 1st turn, Pryce seems like a very high-skill upgrade to make use of.

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I am def excited to follow this more now that I know about it!

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I have experimented lately with a fleet that actually makes good use of the chair swapping ability of the Profundity:

Let's Switch Chairs! (379/400)
====================
MC75 Ordnance Cruiser (100 + 59)
+ Admiral Raddus (26)
+ Major Derlin (7)
+ Ordnance Experts (4)
+ Early Warning System (7)
+ External Racks (3)
+ Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
+ Profundity (7)
MC75 Ordnance Cruiser (100 + 23)
+ Skilled First Officer (1)
+ Ordnance Experts (4)
+ Electronic Countermeasures (7)
+ Assault Proton Torpedoes (5)
+ External Racks (3)
+ Aspiration (3)
CR90 Corvette A (44 + 10)
+ Medical Team (1)
+ Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (7)
+ Jaina's Light (2)
GR-75 Medium Transports (18 + 3)
+ Comms Net (2)
+ Quantum Storm (1)
2 x A-wing Squadron (2 x 11)
Most Wanted
Solar Corona
Jamming Barrier

This fleet ardently needs to go first. Jaina goes into Profundity and Aspiration goes into Raddus. The basic idea is to increase Raddus threat range to insanity levels by first dropping Jaina, then using the increased drop range of Jaina to drop Aspiration. Raddus and Derlin switch chairs to Jaina. Now, Jaina activates first and flies away to safety. If my opponent activates now his big hitter in order to avoid the Aspiration double arc, he has to go into close range of profundity.

I have played this fleet twice on Vassal. Both times a win. The second time against @BrobaFett 's new worlds fleet (I won't tell you what it is :P ). However, I am pretty sure I won't win a second time against him with this fleet. And this fleet is in essence a casual one trick pony. BUT it is fun to see this trick going off the ground! :D