I have tried something similar and got smashed with it. If you bring adequate answers for squads this list is mitigated.

5 minutes ago, ripper998 said:

I have tried something similar and got smashed with it. If you bring adequate answers for squads this list is mitigated.

Describe this adequate please?

I just rolled through both max Rieekan aces and Sloane aces, so I'm curious.

Just now, Green Knight said:

Describe this adequate please?

I just rolled through both max Rieekan aces and Sloane aces, so I'm curious.

Depends on what your good with and your list make up. I know a few sloan aces players that can roll through this two activation list just fine. Thats because they have been playing sloan since she first came out. Honestly there is no one list out there that dominates all the way reeikan aces did. People just need to learn to adapt and mitigate based on the meta.

I see a parallel between how one fights pryce, squall, and squad lists more generally. We have plenty of local players that run variants of all of these in some of the same configurations described above.

My experience with two-ship:

1. Red range wrecks it. I was horsing around with an Ackbar list a couple of months back that had just gotten beaten in a game earlier in the night. Then I tabled a two-ship list Pryce list flown by an experienced solid player. I mis-flew and lost with an Imperial red dice variant about a month later.

2. Squads work, especially Rogues. We live in a rogue-friendly environment, and having some kind of response after activation is critical. I think I had Dash, Ketsu, a couple of YTs, and some A-wings (I forget how many), but it was at least 100 points of squads designed to blunt out the impact of the attacks and put away some squads. Morna does not like four four-dice AS attacks hitting her at the end of a round. Some of these lists either have no Intel or no escort, so getting pinned in and/or having Intel knocked out is a significant threat to their damage.

3. Slicers: It actually accomplishes something in a Thrawn list. You might not get the Thrawn dial, but getting the second dial has been big. And they might be hitting your bigger ships instead of a Slicer flotilla, so stacking up several rounds of Slicers can matter.

I also watched one of my friends punch out several high squad lists with his Jerry ISD large activation list. I'm not sure I can comfortably do that with the Rebels, as my old standby, the Madine Liberty is much more fragile than an ISD, but just being able to generate some big arcs and multiple strong attacks is quite meaningful.

The two ship meta has not hit my area yet, but I did just run this and quiet litterly blew my opponent away.

Assault: Advanced Gunnery
Defense: Contested Outpost
Navigation: Superior Positions

Imperial I (110)
• Governor Pryce (7)
• Boarding Troopers (3)
• Boosted Comms (4)
• Leading Shots (4)
• Spinal Armament (9)
• Avenger (5)
= 142 Points

Imperial I (110)
• Grand Admiral Thrawn (32)
• Captain Brunson (5)
• Darth Vader (3)
• Boosted Comms (4)
• Leading Shots (4)
• XI7 Turbolasers (6)
= 164 Points

Squadrons:
• Captain Jonus (16)
• Dengar (20)
• 6 x TIE Bomber Squadron (54)
= 90 Points

Total Points: 396

The idea was what are the two things that scare Armada players most, lots of squdrons and two ISD so I mixed them together. I do want to try out this quasar list as I think it is better against squadrons, but squadrons have almost become non existent out here, but I try to play lists that make the local meta shift.

As far as winning againts two activation fleets, I think you have to accept that the two activation player has paid the pryce to dictate the engagement. You just need to leverage that and play as if you were out activated, because you are.

1 hour ago, xero989 said:

the two activation player has paid the pryce

Also at the Spokane tourney, the final table was a jj isd/demo/raider with rouges against the 2 ship pryce isd quasar. Pryce lost. The game is up on YouTube

12 hours ago, Astrodar said:

So I've run 2 ship a few times, but I've got to be completely honest. I'm a Rebel at heart. So here are my thoughts on some of the weaknesses.

• Morna / Jendon are the linchpin to the squads. Yes, I suppose there's some dude in a Defender that does stuff as well, but the Morna Double Tap (TM) has a high probability of putting out as much damage as a CR-90B. Most times I've played with MMJ, people focus on Maarek, because they are still haunted by Sloane builds. Morna is particularly weak after a double tap, because often her singular brace is thrown away. Take her out before it comes back.
• Don't be scared to "waste a shot" on flak. These are meaty squads, and every bit counts.
• Ignore the Quasar. Focus the ISD and Squads. The Quasar can be mopped up later. I've notice people tend to focus the Quasar, because it seems easier to take down. However, this is often accompanied by an ISD-II, which can still throw the Linchpin Trio + 1 at you. As pointed out, 2-ship can still 10-1 losing the Quasar. They can't if they lose the ISD.
• Learn to deal with Dust Clouds. Seriously... 2 Ship has given a new life to the often set aside Dust Cloud objectives. They don't mind taking 2nd, because they can keep that Quasar even safer while their squads flit around the board.

I'll definitely need to tag Morna more than I was before. I wasn't worried about wasting shots on flak, I was just running too cautious before. But next time.... ANd I love me some dust clouds, but I need to NOT include them if I'm gonna keep seeing these jerks.

12 hours ago, PT106 said:

1. Know what this list can do and what you can do to this list (I.e. how fast can you kill Quasar? should you try? What is a threat range?)

2. With only two ships and squads that are hungry for squadron commands the fleet has to commit it's location very early in deployment. Utilize that.

6. Keep in mind that Squall can be countered by engaging affected squadrons or covering end-of-squall move zone with a squadron.

Be using this too....

9 hours ago, Snipafist said:

There's a part of me that wonders about fleets with a lot of out-the-gate speed control, like Ozzel, Leia, Garm, or any fleet willing to ditch Entrapment Formation round one (or use it with Hondo) being able to set up difficult guessing games with Pryce because the ships coming for her can increase or decrease speed by 2 on round one to rush the ship or slam on the brakes.

Worth a shot...

5 hours ago, Vergilius said:

I see a parallel between how one fights pryce, squall, and squad lists more generally. We have plenty of local players that run variants of all of these in some of the same configurations described above.

My experience with two-ship:

1. Red range wrecks it. I was horsing around with an Ackbar list a couple of months back that had just gotten beaten in a game earlier in the night. Then I tabled a two-ship list Pryce list flown by an experienced solid player. I mis-flew and lost with an Imperial red dice variant about a month later.

2. Squads work, especially Rogues. We live in a rogue-friendly environment, and having some kind of response after activation is critical. I think I had Dash, Ketsu, a couple of YTs, and some A-wings (I forget how many), but it was at least 100 points of squads designed to blunt out the impact of the attacks and put away some squads. Morna does not like four four-dice AS attacks hitting her at the end of a round. Some of these lists either have no Intel or no escort, so getting pinned in and/or having Intel knocked out is a significant threat to their damage.

3. Slicers: It actually accomplishes something in a Thrawn list. You might not get the Thrawn dial, but getting the second dial has been big. And they might be hitting your bigger ships instead of a Slicer flotilla, so stacking up several rounds of Slicers can matter.

I also watched one of my friends punch out several high squad lists with his Jerry ISD large activation list. I'm not sure I can comfortably do that with the Rebels, as my old standby, the Madine Liberty is much more fragile than an ISD, but just being able to generate some big arcs and multiple strong attacks is quite meaningful.

The more I keep thinking, the more Ketsu does more for me than I expect. AM I DRUNK ENOUGH TO CONSIDER HER?????

25 minutes ago, geek19 said:

The more I keep thinking, the more Ketsu does more for me than I expect. AM I DRUNK ENOUGH TO CONSIDER HER?????

Ha!

As Maarek/Jendon and Gold squadron have shown, there's a special place for two blue squadrons in this game. Her function has to be anti-ship first, and then she's at least annoying enough to squads that the opponent has to kill her first before moving on against your ships. That's still two substantial, or three smaller AS shots to clear her off, not to mention what other squadrons you have that the opponent might have to deal with.

18 minutes ago, Vergilius said:

Ha!

As Maarek/Jendon and Gold squadron have shown, there's a special place for two blue squadrons in this game. Her function has to be anti-ship first, and then she's at least annoying enough to squads that the opponent has to kill her first before moving on against your ships. That's still two substantial, or three smaller AS shots to clear her off, not to mention what other squadrons you have that the opponent might have to deal with.

Where my mind is at, basically. My only question is if I go Ketsu or if I get REAL weird and throw Han in there. Yes, on purpose. Can't outbid me if you cheat the activation order!

Also Morna just gets scattered twice, which, harf harf harf.

Han is his own last first. Worth a try.

1 hour ago, ripper998 said:

Also at the Spokane tourney, the final table was a jj isd/demo/raider with rouges against the 2 ship pryce isd quasar. Pryce lost. The game is up on YouTube

That's vastly understating the game / tournament that was played, you can watch video of that entire tournament and after game 1, I'm the guy that's playing 2 ship the entire time.

As the player flying 2 ship, I hadn't lost a single ship until that final game. Going 10-1, 7-4, and 10-1 on the first day. Placing 1st in the cut to the top 4.
In the top four cut gameplay the next day, I started by faceing a Leia list of 7 hammerheads, a CR90 and a GR75 that was flown excellectly and almost took me down. But I managed to destroy 4 hammerheads, the CR90 and the GR75 before hopping over the rest of the hammerheads where they could no longer attack me and my opponent conceded.

The final match up was against the list I had tabled in the 3rd round match up the day before, he learned from his mistakes and it directly showed in this game against me again the next day.
I failed to take advantage of several options available to me and committed errors that lead to my defeat. That's how things go and as such, I also learned moving into the future.

It might be a bit off topic, but how did the meta shifted to this 2 ship fleet? Nothing has changed, no errata, new ships, or changes to Imperial squads came. How did this fleet comp broke the Riekaan dominance?

I mean we haven't seen similar in the Euros, where Riekaan aceholes and Vader Cymoons seemed to be the dominant.

My problem might be that I don't understand how this fleet beats Riekaan aces. Or why didn't it appeared before.

23 minutes ago, Rimsen said:

It might be a bit off topic, but how did the meta shifted to this 2 ship fleet? Nothing has changed, no errata, new ships, or changes to Imperial squads came. How did this fleet comp broke the Riekaan dominance?

I mean we haven't seen similar in the Euros, where Riekaan aceholes and Vader Cymoons seemed to be the dominant.

My problem might be that I don't understand how this fleet beats Riekaan aces. Or why didn't it appeared before.

My theory? Pryce is as "new" as an upgrade can be right now, and she takes practice to get working. And the fleet itself isn't necessarily some hard counter to Riekaan; it doesn't sound ridiculous to say "134 points of rogues and general bad*** squadrons, buffed by a Quasar, can kill 134 points of Rebel squadrons." Long range MSU not being as much of a thing anymore thanks to Cymoons probably helps to a degree as well.

9 hours ago, Karneck said:

That's vastly understating the game / tournament that was played, you can watch video of that entire tournament and after game 1, I'm the guy that's playing 2 ship the entire time.

3

I didnt understate anything, I only commented on the last game which is all I watched.

I think it shows you that this list is like raddus when he first came out. Alot of people werent sure how to counter it until they played if a few times and adjusted tactics. Same with this. People learn from their mistakes like the person you played and capitalized. It comes down to how good of a player you are in the end.

8 hours ago, Rimsen said:

It might be a bit off topic, but how did the meta shifted to this 2 ship fleet? Nothing has changed, no errata, new ships, or changes to Imperial squads came. How did this fleet comp broke the Riekaan dominance?

I mean we haven't seen similar in the Euros, where Riekaan aceholes and Vader Cymoons seemed to be the dominant.

My problem might be that I don't understand how this fleet beats Riekaan aces. Or why didn't it appeared before.

Mmm... I killed 134 pts of Rieekan aces at Nordics. I cost me 3 of my 8 squads. And Nym got my ISD's brace, but totally worth it

(edit, only 7 aces, one generic HWK)

Why it didn't appear before? It's **** bold, cocky almost. It flies in the face of much accepted wisdom. That said, look at @Ginkapo 's list from top place at Euro Swiss. It's the same mechanics behind it.

It's only stripping down to TWO ships and THRAWN that's really new.

2 hours ago, Green Knight said:

Mmm... I killed 134 pts of Rieekan aces at Nordics. I cost me 3 of my 8 squads. And Nym got my ISD's brace, but totally worth it

(edit, only 7 aces, one generic HWK)

Why it didn't appear before? It's **** bold, cocky almost. It flies in the face of much accepted wisdom. That said, look at @Ginkapo 's list from top place at Euro Swiss. It's the same mechanics behind it.

It's only stripping down to TWO ships and THRAWN that's really new.

If it would have appeared before we wouldn't have SAd now. What a missed opportunity! ?

2 hours ago, Green Knight said:

Why it didn't appear before?

Well.. I think it did. At least I consider it an evolution of Norm Weir's Wave2 ISD+Demo Ozzel Gencon list. Agressively bid for first, bring max squads, make sure you can't be tabled.

1 hour ago, PT106 said:

Well.. I think it did. At least I consider it an evolution of Norm Weir's Wave2 ISD+Demo Ozzel Gencon list. Agressively bid for first, bring max squads, make sure you can't be tabled.

Indeed, there are lot's of inspirations to the list. The 3 ship Sloane I built and was bringing to worlds before the flotilla nerf, Dras' nose punch, Norms 3 ship, dual ISD + squads, all those can be seen as successors.

I mean, pre wave 3 (flotillas) 2 and 3 ship lists were even normal. Additionally, 2 ship including the ISD or Victory in some combo (typically ISD + ISD cause cmon... victory's right?) has never truly gone away. These have all existed, won things, been played by extremely good players. However, for the general player, it has been a long time since any of these have been considered "good".

Truthfully, Clonisher-esque fleets are what killed that, as people realized that by gaming activations they could leverage last first to achieve a kill without retaliation. Since then Armada has almost been solely about increasing activations or at least placing yourself at a position on the activation courve where this could not be used against you without impunity.

This reached critical mass when we were seeing people play 1 + 5 sloane and literally spamming naked gozantis just for activations in order to last first with loaded ISD. The flotilla nerf stabilized this area and for most of wave 7 we settled into 5/6 activations being normal which was pretty sustainable. Even at worlds, shortly after the flotilla nerf, there was an obvious trend amongst people playing at a high level toward lower activations on the imperial side. Norm played 3 ships at worlds, for instance.

However, for most players 5/6 activations continued to be normal. At nationals this last year, for instance, we saw few fleets that broke this mold, especially as many metas dived heavily into squadless LMSU. Dual ISD + squads doing well in England being one notable exception. Problem is, IN GENERAL Rebels have thrived in the post flotilla nerf environment because in a standard 5 activation fleet with 2 flotillas they have been gifted by the game designers with 10 additional fleet points to use over the Imperials simply because the 2x Gozanti's cost that much more for questionable to 0 increase in utility. 10 Fleet points is a lot, all things considered. That plus the hammerhead have given Rebels the leeway to be creative and diverse in their fleet build, while Imperial players have had to retreat to ISD + Demo + 2x goz because everything else, to be frank, felt about 10pts underpowered. This is ultimately the frustration that drove me to play 2 ship. I decided that rather than play with a 10pt handicap, I would eschew the system entirely and find a way to circumvent it. My goal was simply to turn every point spent on activation padding in lieu of effective combat ships into a handicap, removing the benefit of an 18pt flotilla and instead making it an 18pt non-combat liability.

Looking at traditional low activation fleets, I didn't want to go with ISD + ISD because it's always been fact that there are too many compromises. One ISD cheap + one ISD kitted was how I typically saw it because you almost always ran the risk of losing 1 of them, which ate into MOV, which kept the fleet from being highly competitive. Also, Thrawn was seen as non-competitive so often these were Motti, Jerjerrod, or Sloane fleets so navigation also was problematic. So I set to remedying these issues first. Moving to Thrawn (or Jerjerrod, as was @Capt. Griff s method who also started playing ISD Quasar 2 ship around same time as me and was playing the 2 ISD low activation list LONG before I tried my hand at it) and the ISD + Quasar combo covered over the previous weaknesses and also added an unforseen amount of game control. You can trade the quasar and still get a 10, something impossible for the ISD version. Thrawn allows slicer protection and also extreme pryce/quasar protection. I ran it with fast Defenders, Griff opted for heavier squads like Morna. @MandalorianMoose took it and ran with AFFM, Rhymer, and Pryce for incredible reach. All of these were innovations that their respective originators get total credit for.

Essentially, you want to say 2 ship isn't new you are right. There is nothing new under the sun. The first person to buy 2 Core sets and put 2 vics and a crap ton of ties on the table is the person that invented 2 ship. But I know when I started playing my *specific* version of it- Thrawn, ISD, Squall, Pryce, squads- it wasn't like anything I'd seen yet because at that time Thrawn wasn't good, Squall was second rate behind Pursuant, Pryce was fancy but seen as unreliable in comparison to Strat Advisor. It's not unbeatable. It's got some unfavorable matchups. But it's fun and strong, which has always been my goal for an Armada fleet. I know that I've been wearing treads in my game mat playing it, and not gotten tired of it yet. I've gotten fairly good at it. I've also never been shy about talking about it, telling people every detail of it's weaknesses and what makes it tick to help them piece it apart if they like. So I'll play it till it's not good, then I'll find whatever next is fun and strong.

I was bored of the whole game for a while, but Thrawn 2-ship made it fun again.

That's how good it is ?

12 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

But I know when I started playing my *specific* version of it- Thrawn, ISD, Squall, Pryce, squads- it wasn't like anything I'd seen yet because at that time Thrawn wasn't good, Squall was second rate behind Pursuant, Pryce was fancy but seen as unreliable in comparison to Strat Advisor. It's not unbeatable. It's got some unfavorable matchups. But it's fun and strong, which has always been my goal for an Armada fleet. I know that I've been wearing treads in my game mat playing it, and not gotten tired of it yet. I've gotten fairly good at it. I've also never been shy about talking about it, telling people every detail of it's weaknesses and what makes it tick to help them piece it apart if they like. So I'll play it till it's not good, then I'll find whatever next is fun and strong.

I must say I am rather dreading facing your list in VAT Round 4! The ability to activate 4 squads (5 with token) and dish out 12 blue and 8 black anti squad damage at speed 5 plus another 2 from Squall is terrifying. That's an average of 12 hits not factoring in Maarek's ability! Enough to comfortably vaporise your opponent's best fighters.

I'm glad I've got the London Masters between now and when we play to try and figure out what the heck I'm supposed to do!

38 minutes ago, Zamalekite said:

I must say I am rather dreading facing your list in VAT Round 4! The ability to activate 4 squads (5 with token) and dish out 12 blue and 8 black anti squad damage at speed 5 plus another 2 from Squall is terrifying. That's an average of 12 hits not factoring in Maarek's ability! Enough to comfortably vaporise your opponent's best fighters.

I'm glad I've got the London Masters between now and when we play to try and figure out what the heck I'm supposed to do!

Make your own, bid higher?

Just now, The Jabbawookie said:

Make your own, bid higher?

My fleet is already fixed! Pelta + Yavaris. But I have a secret weapon up my sleeve that I think is the key - Tantive IV!