On 2/18/2018 at 4:59 AM, RikkiP said:

Scores from Cardiff 2018 Regional

Great day and good number of players

@Kendraam or @RikkiP , you wouldn't remember what sort of lists Ben Edgar, or Vytas Masteika were flying, do you? I have a number of lists that have no names, but those 2 are the ones that I can't match that got to top tables.

Thanks,

On 2/18/2018 at 3:50 PM, Tokra said:

@Baltanok
I just came back from the Regional in Potsdam. We were 14 players. I am trying to get the lists of all players. But i have already the top four lists (beside the missions from one).

1st : 26 Points

2nd : 23 Points

3rd : 22 Points (not sure if he really had 22, will update it if have more info)

4th : 21 Points

Edit: Just one point to remember. Wave 7 is still not out in Germany and though not tournament legal. The lists were all without Wave 7 cards, and are only of limited use because of this.

Digging a few days back to say I LOVE that squadron compliment on the 2nd place list.

6 hours ago, Baltanok said:

@Kendraam or @RikkiP , you wouldn't remember what sort of lists Ben Edgar, or Vytas Masteika were flying, do you? I have a number of lists that have no names, but those 2 are the ones that I can't match that got to top tables.

Thanks,

@Baltanok
Ben had the Motti ISD, 4 Goz, mass TIE list at 395 points (in the pics I sent, the one next to Rikki's list. Pretty sure Vytas has the Vader, triple Arq list with a yv-666.

Any others you can't match up? I took a pic of each of the last round games so I should be able to match-up any missing ones from them.

10 hours ago, thecactusman17 said:

The issue is not that we have illegal list building, it's that we have fleets that seem to terribly limit player response. The issue with the lists we're seeing now is that there's no effective counterplay without creating a mirror match situation. This isn't healthy or sustainable long term, just like the super-bid no squadron last first Demo builds have fallen largely by the wayside.

This might have been true for wave 6, but not for wave 7. Can't tell yet.

Based on the results we are seeing, what makes you think anything will change because of wave 7. This wave offers some soft counters at best. FFG should have paired the Wave 7 release with the long over due flotillas count for tabling nerf, then we would see real change.

Someone above expressed a concern about getting to use black dice ships without Last/First. Do you really think that in open space, with only a few asteroids floating around (basically no cover to hide behind), an ordnance ship completely ignored and would be allowed to just fly in unopposed without taking long range fire from the enemy on the approach? Does that not make absolute sense? SHotgun rushers have to be prepared to take a hit on the way in.

Black dice are very powerful, they therefore should be hard to use. Last/First is an easy work around that makes them easy to use. Easy to use, and stronger than the other weapons in the game should not go together.

Easy to use stuff should do sub par damage

Hard to use stuff should do above par damage

The issue is that activation spam lets you take hard to use weapons, that do above par damage, and turn them into easy to use weapons by exploiting the weak point of last/first in the rule set. Some of the most common examples include: The Demo triple tap, the Yavaris Bomb, etc.

Powerful abilities should be hard to deliver. We should not applaud workarounds that make them easy to deliver by out mathing the enemy into getting first/lasted.

For clarity, the reason I say "out mathing," is because first/last is determined before play begins, in the list building phase. It comes down to guessing what bid to take and guessing what number of activations to bring and is decided before the game starts. Some see this as a skill, but it can often end up creating a situation where when 2 fleets built this way match up, the winner is the one who built their fleet to outbid and activate the other, making match ups very critical and forcing he other player to play at a steep disadvantage.

Getting lucky and drawing match-ups you outbid can then have more bearing on your results than your games then the play on the tabletop. :-(

14 minutes ago, Space_Cowboy17 said:

Based on the results we are seeing, what makes you think anything will change because of wave 7. This wave offers some soft counters at best. FFG should have paired the Wave 7 release with the long over due flotillas count for tabling nerf, then we would see real change.

Someone above expressed a concern about getting to use black dice ships without Last/First. Do you really think that in open space, with only a few asteroids floating around (basically no cover to hide behind), an ordnance ship completely ignored and would be allowed to just fly in unopposed without taking long range fire from the enemy on the approach? Does that not make absolute sense? SHotgun rushers have to be prepared to take a hit on the way in.

Black dice are very powerful, they therefore should be hard to use. Last/First is an easy work around that makes them easy to use. Easy to use, and stronger than the other weapons in the game should not go together.

Easy to use stuff should do sub par damage

Hard to use stuff should do above par damage

The issue is that activation spam lets you take hard to use weapons, that do above par damage, and turn them into easy to use weapons by exploiting the weak point of last/first in the rule set. Some of the most common examples include: The Demo triple tap, the Yavaris Bomb, etc.

Powerful abilities should be hard to deliver. We should not applaud workarounds that make them easy to deliver by out mathing the enemy into getting first/lasted.

For clarity, the reason I say "out mathing," is because first/last is determined before play begins, in the list building phase. It comes down to guessing what bid to take and guessing what number of activations to bring and is decided before the game starts. Some see this as a skill, but it can often end up creating a situation where when 2 fleets built this way match up, the winner is the one who built their fleet to outbid and activate the other, making match ups very critical and forcing he other player to play at a steep disadvantage.

Getting lucky and drawing match-ups you outbid can then have more bearing on your results than your games then the play on the tabletop. :-(

To quote Stripes, "Lighten up, Francis."

9 hours ago, BiggsIRL said:

Digging a few days back to say I LOVE that squadron compliment on the 2nd place list.

Only 9 Z95s? What a f***ing casual.

1 hour ago, Space_Cowboy17 said:

SHotgun rushers have to be prepared to take a hit on the way in.

Sure, but that's a game design decision. A game could have chosen to have rushers be cheap enough that you can afford to lose a few, or durable enough that they can get in, unload, and get out. And the big heavies that they are attacking could be slow enough that they can't move out of range before the surviving rushers shoot. But that's not the game we have.

4 hours ago, Kendraam said:

@Baltanok
Ben had the Motti ISD, 4 Goz, mass TIE list at 395 points (in the pics I sent, the one next to Rikki's list. Pretty sure Vytas has the Vader, triple Arq list with a yv-666.

Any others you can't match up? I took a pic of each of the last round games so I should be able to match-up any missing ones from them.

Still need to match 11, 13, 15, 19, 20, 21, and I think I've only found one page of 7. (290/400 seems like a really big bid.). Edit: oops, found my error with list #7. Forgot to name ship #2, so I had a cloud of upgrades flying through space in loose formation. Thanks!

See I think the better approach would be to not rush straight in, an MC 30 is fast for a reason, so it can flank out wide and come in on angles that don't allow the big ships to get good arcs on them, specially if the shotgun rushers split up and come in from both sides. As it stands, most black dice ships sit out of range at speed 2 and bank tokens, then perform a headlong charge directly at their target at speed 4 in the last activation, then activate first, double arc and leave. (Who didn't see that coming, your so good at this game...)

Because the system only allows you to effectively double activate 1 ship per turn, you end up with a congo line of ships doing this one turn after another. This tactic is a clear result of the last/first mechanic. If the large ship saw a congo line of small rushers coming in it would be trivial to blast them down one at a time if they were foolish enough to drive straight at their best arc all alone. The game mechanics allow this ridiculous tactic to be viable based on activation order limitations.

A more realistic tactic would be to swarm the large target from all sides at the same time, overwhelming the large ships ability to react to all the threats being presented. This would be both more realistic, AND allow the large ships commander to get to make choices about what ships to fire at in order to lessen the damage. As it stand, the large ships captain has very little say about what happens because they cannot react to a double activation.

If you see a line of short range ships approaching in a single file line, setting up to take bombing passes at you, would you really be dumb enough to ignore the LEAD SHIP long enough to let it move from the extreme of your weapons range into their range, unload its salvo, and then jet away out of arc and ride off into the sunset without reacting to it at all?

If your captain is actually that stupid, do you think he would continue to make that same mistake over and over again as the next ship in line comes in to do the same exact thing?

This realistic example gets even more absurd when it is done using 4-5 useless non-combat ships and one Large ship. Who does not see this coming. How dumb do you have to be in order to allow and ISD or MC80 to close on you like this when it is clearly the only combat threat opposing you.

The first/last mechanic makes no real world sense at all, and is bad for gameplay, because it removes one players chance to react to the opponents action .

Most games that alternate activations, including Legion from what I can tell, counter this with a Hold action that lets an early activation unit wait to fire until the enemy approaches, to combat exactly this kind of ridiculous tactic. Not saying that we need something like this in Armada because that starts a whole new line of thinking, but activation parity also blocks this stuff and does not change the rest of the game as much.

Other games see the issue and take steps to block this kind of stuff... for a reason.

36 minutes ago, Baltanok said:

Still need to match 11, 13, 15, 19, 20, 21, and I think I've only found one page of 7. (290/400 seems like a really big bid.). Edit: oops, found my error with list #7. Forgot to name ship #2, so I had a cloud of upgrades flying through space in loose formation. Thanks!

Ok -

11 is the ISD, Quasar, 3 Goz, 10 TIE list

13 is 2-As, GR75 and either the MC80 SC, MC75 list or MC80 BC, double CR-90 list??

15 i think is 'My Fleet' ISD, 2 Raider, 2 Goz

19 is ISD 2, Arq, Glad list i think

20 is the ISD, Interdictor 'Thrawn Suppressor' lsit

21 is the double MC80 'Make B-wings great again' list

1 hour ago, Space_Cowboy17 said:

See I think the better approach would be to not rush straight in, an MC 30 is fast for a reason, so it can flank out wide and come in on angles that don't allow the big ships to get good arcs on them, specially if the shotgun rushers split up and come in from both sides. As it stands, most black dice ships sit out of range at speed 2 and bank tokens, then perform a headlong charge directly at their target at speed 4 in the last activation, then activate first, double arc and leave. (Who didn't see that coming, your so good at this game...)

Because the system only allows you to effectively double activate 1 ship per turn, you end up with a congo line of ships doing this one turn after another. This tactic is a clear result of the last/first mechanic. If the large ship saw a congo line of small rushers coming in it would be trivial to blast them down one at a time if they were foolish enough to drive straight at their best arc all alone. The game mechanics allow this ridiculous tactic to be viable based on activation order limitations.

Bail, Pryce...

Quote

A more realistic tactic would be to swarm the large target from all sides at the same time, overwhelming the large ships ability to react to all the threats being presented. This would be both more realistic, AND allow the large ships commander to get to make choices about what ships to fire at in order to lessen the damage.

Play hammerheads.

Quote

As it stand, the large ships captain has very little say about what happens because they cannot react to a double activation.

Again, Bail, Pryce....

Quote

If you see a line of short range ships approaching in a single file line, setting up to take bombing passes at you, would you really be dumb enough to ignore the LEAD SHIP long enough to let it move from the extreme of your weapons range into their range, unload its salvo, and then jet away out of arc and ride off into the sunset without reacting to it at all?

Activate something else first?

Quote

If your captain is actually that stupid, do you think he would continue to make that same mistake over and over again as the next ship in line comes in to do the same exact thing?

This realistic example gets even more absurd when it is done using 4-5 useless non-combat ships and one Large ship. Who does not see this coming. How dumb do you have to be in order to allow and ISD or MC80 to close on you like this when it is clearly the only combat threat opposing you.

Again, Bail, Pryce.

Quote

The first/last mechanic makes no real world sense at all, and is bad for gameplay, because it removes one players chance to react to the opponents action .

Not if you navigate different than if you were fighting another large based ship. Swarm fleets are not Vader Double Cymoon, and you have to play against them differently.

Quote

Most games that alternate activations, including Legion from what I can tell, counter this with a Hold action that lets an early activation unit wait to fire until the enemy approaches, to combat exactly this kind of ridiculous tactic. Not saying that we need something like this in Armada because that starts a whole new line of thinking, but activation parity also blocks this stuff and does not change the rest of the game as much.

Other games see the issue and take steps to block this kind of stuff... for a reason.

Bail, Pryce... Like, a lot of your "all the flotillas out wait me and then I get last-firsted" are countered by them.

2 minutes ago, geek19 said:

Not if you navigate different than if you were fighting another large based ship.

This: Navigate. Also, park your flankers or fighter cover where that MC30 is going to land on it's exit. Or use the board edge to control their approach.

On the "how stupid must your captain be?" question, "exactly as stupid as my gunners, who are constrained by Corellian Gunnery Association rules to only fire on exact one-minute intervals."

35 minutes ago, Baltanok said:

This: Navigate. Also, park your flankers or fighter cover where that MC30 is going to land on it's exit. Or use the board edge to control their approach.

On the "how stupid must your captain be?" question, "exactly as stupid as my gunners, who are constrained by Corellian Gunnery Association rules to only fire on exact one-minute intervals."

"Sir, According to the Corellian accords, we're only allowed to fire on two ships at a time!"

That or they're only STAFFED to fire out of two arcs, haha.

Bail and Pryce are in fact geared to address this issue, but can only be on one ship, and can only work on one telegraphed turn, and can be used against you if the timing is off, or is forced off your opponent. They are limp wristed attempts to address a deeply rooted problem.

If these 2 cards are in fact the answer to all our problems, show me the data. I have not seen either of them widely used to great effect in the lists we have been receiving. The list we keep seeing win are still of the 1+4 or 2+3 variety in most cases.

Would it not be better to address the issue directly than slap together some edge case options for a single ship within a fleet.

56 minutes ago, Baltanok said:

This: Navigate. Also, park your flankers or fighter cover where that MC30 is going to land on it's exit. Or use the board edge to control their approach.

On the "how stupid must your captain be?" question, "exactly as stupid as my gunners, who are constrained by Corellian Gunnery Association rules to only fire on exact one-minute intervals."

These are counter plays we all know about and understand, why bring them up like this is news to people? The fact of the matter is, it is very powerful to get to back to back activate a ship, we all know it so just admit it.

We must like this arbitrary time warp every turn, that doubles the speed of one ship, and temporarily disables the weapons on an opposing ship, based on the fact that 40,000 klicks away there happen to be 3 transports running away from the battle.

13 minutes ago, geek19 said:

"Sir, According to the Corellian accords, we're only allowed to fire on two ships at a time!"

That or they're only STAFFED to fire out of two arcs, haha.

I can accept power limitations for the 2 ship rule. One of my favorite computer games was "the cosmic balance" where you had to allocate power between shields, drives, and readying guns. But that was 30 years ago, back when processors were graded on instructions processed per fortnight.

2 hours ago, Baltanok said:

Oops, found my error with list #7. Forgot to name ship #2, so I had a cloud of upgrades flying through space in loose formation. Thanks!

You mean how Air Force One is a bunch of radios and reporters the Air Force wrapped some aluminum around?

This image was just so priceless.

11 minutes ago, Space_Cowboy17 said:

These are counter plays we all know about and understand, why bring them up like this is news to people? The fact of the matter is, it is very powerful to get to back to back activate a ship, we all know it so just admit it.

Last/first is super powerful and an artifact of any game with alternating activations.

But, as you said yourself, there are counterplays. There are fleet builds that minimize the overall importance of last/first type of moves from their opponents. There are effective tactics on the table that mitigate this advantage. Wave 7 gave us some new tools that you can employ if you think it is important.

You seemed to have arrived at the conclusion that it is the MOST important thing in determining the outcome of an Armada match. I shared that opinion at one point, but have since changed my mind. There are others on these forums who think that squadron play is the more dominating factor.

I think the people here that are disagreeing with you aren't disagreeing about the power of last/first, just your position that it is the most powerful/important thing in Armada and requires a structural change to the game.

To me last/first and general activation advantage are important and powerful, but just among the many aspects of what goes in to determining the outcome of an Armada match.

2 hours ago, Space_Cowboy17 said:

See I think the better approach would be to not rush straight in, an MC 30 is fast for a reason, so it can flank out wide and come in on angles that don't allow the big ships to get good arcs on them, specially if the shotgun rushers split up and come in from both sides. As it stands, most black dice ships sit out of range at speed 2 and bank tokens, then perform a headlong charge directly at their target at speed 4 in the last activation, then activate first, double arc and leave. (Who didn't see that coming, your so good at this game...)

Okay, I think I see the problem here: you don't know how to play MC30's beyond a very fundamental level...

2 hours ago, Space_Cowboy17 said:

If you see a line of short range ships approaching in a single file line, setting up to take bombing passes at you, would you really be dumb enough to ignore the LEAD SHIP long enough to let it move from the extreme of your weapons range into their range, unload its salvo, and then jet away out of arc and ride off into the sunset without reacting to it at all?

... and you also don't know how to play against a series of last/firsting MC30's.

Did you by any chance recently lose to somebody flying such a list?

I can understand why you're tired of losing to them. Friendly Darth Doctor has a prescription for that:

The Imperial Medical Association recommends no more than 10% skill increase per day. Side effects may including winning, inflated opinion of yourself, and decreased interest in QQing on the internet. Call your doctor if your victory dance persists for more than 4 hours.

In seriousness, a black dice ship flying in from the side of a target is arguably MORE dependent on last/first, because if it doesn't get it that target is just going to fly off into oblivion. If we're talking breakdowns in the simulation game, you can't fail to account for the fact that dropping in behind and to the flank of a ship is the worst place to try and pursue it from. There's a reason those MC30's fly directly in front of you, and it ain't stupidity.

I have not lost a game against an MC 30 or activation spam fleets in over 18 months, but that is not the point. My personal play has no bearing on observation.

You telling me to play better does nothing to refute my assertion that Last/First, while counterable as we all know, limits one players ability to react to the other players moves during a crucial moment in the game. That is one of the negative effects of overload as we have discussed above. The limiting of one players ability to interact in the game and make meaningful decisions is removed.

Black dice ships should be very hard to deliver, they are very potent so they should be hard to use. Last/First lowers the barrier of effectively using them considerably.

Why do we suppose other games such as Imperial Assault, Legion, and Infinity, have Hold actions or pass actions included in their alternating activation game systems if not to address this exact problem?

Why don't chess matches allow one player to move 2 pieces back to back? Why not in Checkers, Go, or any other strategy game that is played at a highly competitive level? Because that would upset the games balance by allowing one player more chances to affect the board than the other.

Activation count overload is aimed at creating an advantage built around this very concept that so many long standing and highly respected games prevent, and they prevent it for a very good reason.

9 minutes ago, Space_Cowboy17 said:

I have not lost a game against an MC 30 or activation spam fleets in over 18 months, but that is not the point. My personal play has no bearing on observation.

You telling me to play better does nothing to refute my assertion that Last/First, while counterable as we all know, limits one players ability to react to the other players moves during a crucial moment in the game. That is one of the negative effects of overload as we have discussed above. The limiting of one players ability to interact in the game and make meaningful decisions is removed.

Black dice ships should be very hard to deliver, they are very potent so they should be hard to use. Last/First lowers the barrier of effectively using them considerably.

Why do we suppose other games such as Imperial Assault, Legion, and Infinity, have Hold actions or pass actions included in their alternating activation game systems if not to address this exact problem?

Why don't chess matches allow one player to move 2 pieces back to back? Why not in Checkers, Go, or any other strategy game that is played at a highly competitive level? Because that would upset the games balance by allowing one player more chances to affect the board than the other.

Activation count overload is aimed at creating an advantage built around this very concept that so many long standing and highly respected games prevent, and they prevent it for a very good reason.

Ok, so you've identified a problem. Now what?

You're not going to persuade or force the community to pull punches and play "friendly" fleets.

You're not going to change the rules.

You're not going to convince FFG to change the rules.

Why do you think I gave up on this? It's pointless.

Hang on, so last/first is horrific abuse as first player. Objective abuse is horrific abuse as second player.

Its like they balance, or am I missing something.

Incidentally, its not necessary to run last/first lists, it actually compromises on efficiency to only have one ship attacking per turn, much more efficient to use trc90s and the like to keep the pressure up throughout a turn. Defence tokens are uniquely resistant to single attacks per turn, so if you can maintain pressure its actually easier to get damage through than attempting to use burst alone.

@Undeadguy

All I am suggesting is that people avoid the overload principle since it is an easy button.

Take solid, well thought out combined arms fleets that allow for all the generalist lists that are being squeezed out at the top tables to also have a chance since they don't have to live in fear of being overloaded.

I think making flotillas not count for tabling would introduce enough risk into spamming for activation advantage, that we would see less people trying to overload with activations.

@Ginkapo

Leveraging First/Last, or leveraging Objective Farming are both examples of overloading, they may balance out, assuming they face off against each other, but what about everyone in between that does not play to one of these extremes? Do they just not get to have a fair game because they did not conform to the meta?

Combined fire is one way to kill stuff quickly as you pointed out. BTA, Triple Tap Demo, Last/First Yavaris, (maybe Raddus MC75) have ways to deal with tokens too and also kill stuff quickly, but with a single ship (Which you can hide with Last/First). The difference is that the opponent gets more chance to react to a group of ships, but does not get to react to a Last/First attack from a single ship. Hence why last/first is bad.

19 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Its like they balance, or am I missing something.

Yes, you forgot that max squadrons also are horrific abuse.

4 hours ago, Space_Cowboy17 said:

If you see a line of short range ships approaching in a single file line, setting up to take bombing passes at you, would you really be dumb enough to ignore the LEAD SHIP long enough to let it move from the extreme of your weapons range into their range, unload its salvo, and then jet away out of arc and ride off into the sunset without reacting to it at all?

If your captain is actually that stupid, do you think he would continue to make that same mistake over and over again as the next ship in line comes in to do the same exact thing?

This realistic example gets even more absurd when it is done using 4-5 useless non-combat ships and one Large ship. Who does not see this coming. How dumb do you have to be in order to allow and ISD or MC80 to close on you like this when it is clearly the only combat threat opposing you.

The first/last mechanic makes no real world sense at all

Not gonna comment on the rest, but yeah. Turn order for a space combat game?? cmon.

Biggest uninspired game design let down