I forget who did the math(s) for squadrons but I think there is a "1 pt" addition for Rogue.

Are aces undercosted, overcosted, or just right? In most builds, it appears that 8 squadrons is the magic number (deployment advantage, and squadron activations needed by carriers). Then again, Jon R. won the first Worlds with his normal A-wing spam that, at the time, there were discussion of them being OP'd.

On other threads, I've heard people argue for 1 ace for every 2 normal squadrons. I don't remember if it was for fluff, squadron diversity or because aces are OP'd.

IMO, Commander Vader's ability should apply to Imp Aces, much like Rieekan applies to Rebel Aces!

Perhaps, there needs to be a "wingman controller" card... when one non-unique activates, another one can... then again, it would make Yavaris so devastating. Or I guess it would be easier to have... "upgrade - +2 to your squadron value. you may only activate non-uniques."

I remember a time when the Neb-B was hated because it would be one-shotted by Demo. Rieekan was probably created to deny the Demo triple tap.

Overall, the part that makes spamming ties, or Z's risky. If you make the cut, you may lose by 7/8 because they killed a squadron and you did not. Not good for viewing!

Thoughts?

I've always said Aces were undercosted for the additionnal benefit and survivability they provide. There's almost no reason to use a generic squad if you can use an ace instead.

I could live with the cost if a limit on aces was introduced. Lists with all aces are a bit deflating somehow. 1 ace per generic would do.

What I’d really like to see is new units for existing models/characters. Most notably a Vader that acts more like Vader & is quite rightly the ultimate fighter unit. I can’t recall the last time I saw a list that includes Vader’s TIE. And that’s just sad.

14 minutes ago, ISD Avenger said:

I can’t recall the last time I saw a list that includes Vader’s TIE. And that’s just sad.

Didn't Ben won Euro last year with Vader TIE in his list?

5 minutes ago, noggin said:

Didn't Ben won Euro last year with Vader TIE in his list?

classic Ben

The reason for Vader's TIE-A scarcity has to be down to Zertek. For only 15 points you get the same defence tokens as Vader and the same Escort rule to attract fire. If you want Vader's extra damage infliction then Tempest squadron or Marrek are better bets for the points. BCC doesn't work with Vader either.

I think rogue is worth 2 points if you compare a standard X-Wing to Rogue Squadron. A 1 point refund for loosing Escort and then 2 points for Rogue .

When I play Rieekan lists I use 124 points of squadrons but have 3 generics in there. 1 X-wing as I need the Escort rule for protection. Also 2 B-Wings for ship cracking duties. I could easily take Dagger squadron to make one of the B-wings unique and therefore Rieekan Zombie capable but I prefer the small initiative bid. Gold Squadron was added when the CC pack came out as it is a cheaper B-Wing with a little more speed.

With Rieekan still doing well in the world championships I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't limit Rieekan to only Zombie named squadron characters (the ones with defence tokens like Wedge & Tycho) rather than just all unique squadrons.

21 minutes ago, Mad Cat said:

The reason for Vader's TIE-A scarcity has to be down to Zertek. For only 15 points you get the same defence tokens as Vader and the same Escort rule to attract fire. If you want Vader's extra damage infliction then Tempest squadron or Marrek are better bets for the points. BCC doesn't work with Vader either.

I think rogue is worth 2 points if you compare a standard X-Wing to Rogue Squadron. A 1 point refund for loosing Escort and then 2 points for Rogue .

When I play Rieekan lists I use 124 points of squadrons but have 3 generics in there. 1 X-wing as I need the Escort rule for protection. Also 2 B-Wings for ship cracking duties. I could easily take Dagger squadron to make one of the B-wings unique and therefore Rieekan Zombie capable but I prefer the small initiative bid. Gold Squadron was added when the CC pack came out as it is a cheaper B-Wing with a little more speed.

With Rieekan still doing well in the world championships I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't limit Rieekan to only Zombie named squadron characters (the ones with defence tokens like Wedge & Tycho) rather than just all unique squadrons.

Rieekan doesn't need another nerf, though. Yes, he did well in Worlds, but so did Raddus.

In general, it's harder to chip away at ace squadrons (especially scatter aces) than generics and aces are either straight up more powerful (better offensive abilities) or have some kind of squad support ability (like Norra, Dengar, Jan, etc.) that contributes to the total squad blob. This leaves aces providing more high-quality squad activations compared to generics overall and more capable of going after ships without as much trouble once they've won the squadron mini-game. There's also the fact that it seems like FFG's ace points formula is sometimes really weird. The easiest example is Maarek Stele, who for only 5 points more than a standard Defender gains Grit, one more blue bomber die, two brace tokens, and an extremely good special ability. It's not hard to find other examples of this kind of thing on either side (Ten Numb, Jan Ors, Tycho, Shara, Mauler Mithel, Valen Rudor, Ciena Ree, Zertik, etc.).

That said, Rebel generics seem to be doing just fine. I still see X-Wings, Y-Wings, A-Wings, B-Wings, Z-95s, and the occasional Scurgg or YT-1300 across the table from me. Imperial generics are struggling. I see them a lot less than I used to for numerous reasons, some that seem structural and some that are simply responses to the meta. To bring up FFG's points formula once more, I think it's fair to argue that in general the points cost of more well-rounded Rebel generics is fairly competitive, especially in light of their excellent synergistic squad support and the ever-present Jan. The points cost on more specialized Imperial generic squadrons I'm less convinced about. If (and I'm not necessarily recommending this) FFG announced that every Imperial generic squadron got a 1 point discount, I doubt we'd see wholesale game balance insanity. If they did that with Rebel generics, we probably would.

49 minutes ago, ISD Avenger said:

I could live with the cost if a limit on aces was introduced. Lists with all aces are a bit deflating somehow. 1 ace per generic would do.

And it is this attitude I just don't understand. I didn't understand it with Flotillas, and I don't understand it with Squadrons. When I show up to play Armada, I want to face off against the best list that my opponents could possibly come up with, using every opportunity to give themselves an advantage. Then I want to beat those lists.

Instead, I keep reading how it is too hard for my Z lists to be competitive against X lists, and still be competitive against Y lists, Nerf this component of X lists.

My answer has always been, give me more options for my Z lists, don't dumb down the X lists. Raise the bar, don't lower it. Everything about the nerfs was just a lowering of the bar on list building options. A dumbing down of Armada. It's lazy game design.

It is absolutely impossible to create a system, with this many options, that has perfect parody. Some list types are going to be better against others. Some are going to be better against most but not all. Some require greater skill or practice to be competitive. Some will require a total change in tactics depending on the list they face. That's my idea of good competition.

39 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

classic Ben

Wrong Ben.

1 minute ago, cynanbloodbane said:

And it is this attitude I just don't understand. I didn't understand it with Flotillas, and I don't understand it with Squadrons. When I show up to play Armada, I want to face off against the best list that my opponents could possibly come up with, using every opportunity to give themselves an advantage. Then I want to beat those lists.

Instead, I keep reading how it is too hard for my Z lists to be competitive against X lists, and still be competitive against Y lists, Nerf this component of X lists.

My answer has always been, give me more options for my Z lists, don't dumb down the X lists. Raise the bar, don't lower it. Everything about the nerfs was just a lowering of the bar on list building options. A dumbing down of Armada. It's lazy game design.

It is absolutely impossible to create a system, with this many options, that has perfect parody. Some list types are going to be better against others. Some are going to be better against most but not all. Some require greater skill or practice to be competitive. Some will require a total change in tactics depending on the list they face. That's my idea of good competition.

they're asking for nerfs, you're asking for power creep. Hard to tell which one is the worst and I doubt power creep is not lazy design either. The problem with squadrons and flotillas is that they're deemed "the best thing" and nothing is competitive except these type of lists. The fact that the 2 Worlds lists were full of Rieekan aces, again, seem to correlate to that. People who are asking for nerfs are asking for the same thing as you: more fleet diversity. And, sometimes it makes more sense to tone something down than to buff something else, because if you do the latter, you just go in FotM spiral that never ends (aka power creep).

Again, look at Worlds: for once we had very diverse lists, although Raddus was a bit more omnipresent than the other admirals. And people dared try something new instead of the "max squadrons max flotillas" thing that is extremely boring to play against. (I'm pretty sure it's pretty boring to play as as well)

Aces are too prevalent in competitive play right now. The small increase in cost is well worth it to get just the defense tokens; the abilities are just another bonus. Maybe they should require at least 1 base type squad for every ace? Example, you must have 1 TIE Advanced to include Zertik; or, you require at least 1 X-Wing before you can include Biggs?

It's getting a little tiring seeing full Ace squad compositions on both sides. Kallus isn't any detraction at all.

2 hours ago, cynanbloodbane said:

And it is this attitude I just don't understand. I didn't understand it with Flotillas, and I don't understand it with Squadrons. When I show up to play Armada, I want to face off against the best list that my opponents could possibly come up with, using every opportunity to give themselves an advantage. Then I want to beat those lists.

Instead, I keep reading how it is too hard for my Z lists to be competitive against X lists, and still be competitive against Y lists, Nerf this component of X lists.

Who said anything about hard? I don’t particularly care about competitiveness. I’m after the Star Wars experience, which is tons of generic TIEs zipping about, Rogue Squadron charging to the rescue etc etc.

It doesn’t seem thematically correct for a skirmish to be full of ace squadrons.

I hated the 4+ flotilla lists that used to be popular. Because it didn’t feel like Star Wars to me. But I never asked for a nerf as you put it.

And since when were restrictions synonymous with a nerf? No admirals on flotillas was a nerf in game mechanics terms but it was thematically correct in my mind.

When people used to try to formulate squadron costs there was usually -1pt cost for being unique...

17 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

When people used to try to formulate squadron costs there was usually -1pt cost for being unique...

Interesting. That's too bad. Unique isn't nearly as big of a deal when's you only have to worry about 400 points anyways. So what if I can only have 1 sabers squadron? That's all I'll ever need!

And I agree the problem is a thematic one just as much as a gameplay one. There is no way one small task force is going to have 8 of the 20 best imperial squadrons and pilots.

16 minutes ago, Tiberius the Killer said:

Interesting. That's too bad. Unique isn't nearly as big of a deal when's you only have to worry about 400 points anyways. So what if I can only have 1 sabers squadron? That's all I'll ever need!

And I agree the problem is a thematic one just as much as a gameplay one. There is no way one small task force is going to have 8 of the 20 best imperial squadrons and pilots.

Problem is when you take that last paragraph to the end... why have an Admiral like Tarkin, Thrawn or Ackbar...

I came into this thread to announce that most of the so-called "Aces" are not in fact worthy of the title, having less than 5 confirmed kills to their names.

4 hours ago, Sybreed said:

they're asking for nerfs, you're asking for power creep. Hard to tell which one is the worst and I doubt power creep is not lazy design either. The problem with squadrons and flotillas is that they're deemed "the best thing" and nothing is competitive except these type of lists. The fact that the 2 Worlds lists were full of Rieekan aces, again, seem to correlate to that. People who are asking for nerfs are asking for the same thing as you: more fleet diversity. And, sometimes it makes more sense to tone something down than to buff something else, because if you do the latter, you just go in FotM spiral that never ends (aka power creep).

Again, look at Worlds: for once we had very diverse lists, although Raddus was a bit more omnipresent than the other admirals. And people dared try something new instead of the "max squadrons max flotillas" thing that is extremely boring to play against. (I'm pretty sure it's pretty boring to play as as well)

More options is not"power creep" especially if you are adding unitaskers. Add a 3 die anti-squadron ship, that has a Gozanti's anti-ship dice. Add a small ship only upgrade that nullifies some Squadron keywords within distance 2.

Ideally I envision a meta where there is no way to build a list that is strong against everything. When I see players at the top tables that had one 6:5 game to go with the 10:1 and 9:2, then Armada is balanced. Those are the stats I find disturbing, not that one list type is dominant, but that there are too few options, and any list has the ability to be dominant. I advocate asymmetrical yet equal power, not neuter down to the lowest common denominator.

If cards like Ruthless Strategists did not exist I could see some sort of argument for limitation.

But counters do exist, people don't use them and so certain lists prevail, to the exclusion of others.

The game designers gave you the tools, use them.

Im not going to say op/notop. But competitive builds these days seem to be very heavily ace based. Generics seem to be in there for their specialisations eg Nathans yt1300s from worlds, or double vcxs.

Aces are individually good but the synergies they get together become amazing.

The other thing is when the squad battle starts in earnest generics seem to die really quickly. Aces take roughly double the damage plus scatter aces can sometimes live far longer than they deserve to.

Finally, aces usually make 3 damage reliable the minimum - that way even after the brace you are still getting a decent hit in.

42 minutes ago, TheEasternKing said:

If cards like Ruthless Strategists did not exist I could see some sort of argument for limitation.

But counters do exist, people don't use them and so certain lists prevail, to the exclusion of others.

The game designers gave you the tools, use them.

For sure. You could run as an extreme, a kuat with ord pods, quad lasers, kallus, cluster bombs and ruthless. But everyone wants gunnery team or bt avenger! But looking at worlds for example the big hitter battleships couldnt make it through, wheras the kuat may at least have had a chance. Stock kuat is still plenty for ship busting most of the time!

I think most of this stems from the fact that you need to create a differential in points between yourself and the opponent. The upgrades available in the squadron game to the amplify Ace squadrons, and combined with the extra defensiveness that aces bring, make it much more beneficial to have aces. That being said, I don't think generics are entirely out. I got to the point in the pre-nerf regional days of running 6 A-wings and 4 YT2400s, which I copied from Aresius and which I think represents the evolution of Q's own 8xYT2400, replicated in Steve's Crackinator list. If you're running generics, you can get more overall dice in your list versus the aces, but you need to be absolutely certain you can capitalize on it. That means a bigger alpha, or a way to change game-state at the end of a round (Rogue). And certain builds that can splash a lot of AS around, whether from Flak or direct damage abilities like Ten Numb and Mauler are going to mess pretty seriously with the flimsy generics.

I'm leaning toward pretty close to "right" on cost. You get about 1.5 the stayability, and a special ability that adds about 1.5 to some dimension of the squadron at about 1.5 the cost of a generic. Also, misplay an ace squad and its loss seems to hurt a lot worse. Your squad play can be a bit less precise when you don't have to worry about getting exactly the right squadron to exactly the right place. Also, there's something to be said about the long term effects of decision-making on taking generic or light squads---the more complicated your list, the more decisions you have to make, and the more fatique sets in and affects you as a tournament goes on. I think that's why Nathan had an interesting mix of generics/aces.

I feel a bit of list composition restriction can be a powerful balancing point. Something like the aforementioned 1A/1G ratio, or maybe "you get 4 unique squads" etc. The 2 flotilla cap was obviously healthy for the game, perhaps an Ace limit would be as well?

I've started running a 4-TIE screen component to any fighter group l make and it makes games feel far more thematic.