Who are your go to Admirals for doing CC. With the restriction of one Upgrade per ship some admirals just don't seem to be as good choices. Because I find once you get the right ship with the right upgrades on them then the chosen admiral starts to shine.

Reason I as as I will be doing the CC with my brother and im playing Rebels so just wanted some pointers on what 2 admirals to possibly use and what to steer clear of.

I’d do Raddus with a profundity, ex racks hammerhead, admonition.

Second, Dodonna is always good. Ackbar is fun, you get to build up to a good fleet. So I’d make a 500 pt fleet with all the upgrades and then drop points from there.

I'm one of the crazy people that love using Garm, especially if your list is going to use lots of command 2-3 vessels. I usually run him with MC80 Assault Cruisers.

Garm has been a favorite of mine as well. I ran a double LMC80BC list with Ahsoka and Mon Cal Exodus Fleet that was tons of fun. When the Liberties became veterans I was gaining up to 8 free tokens a game. Ahsoka would then turn them into engineering tokens as needed so I could rebuild 2 shields each turn while still navigating. With a bit of strategic on my side it made the Base Assault: Ion Cannon objective a lot more palatable (and it's only fitting that Garm retake Corellia).

I've also liked playing Darth Vader in campaigns. I took a squadronless Arquitens + Raider swarm that ended up being way more fun than I expected. Plus I got to wear my Vader costume and quote a lot of classic lines. I'm a firm believer that campaigns are better with good villains 😈 😁

In a few of the campaigns I've organized I restricted the number of starting Repair Yards to 1 planet each in order to mix things up a bit. However, I ruled that a team could get +1 Repair Yard planet if they started with 2 of out 3 Admirals from a list of what are generally considered subpar choices (e.g. Konstantine, Tagge, Cracken, Sato, etc...). This turned out great as it got players out of their tournament build mindset.

My last CC, I Tarkin’d.

ISD

Interdictor

Victory

Victory

Bossk

Valen

I remember one Vic was ruthless and the other was Flight Controllers, and both the ISD and Dictor had tgeir needed... it was a lot of brute firepower

I’ve run Jerry and Ozzel (because he let me fit more bombers and run away better) and liked both.

Vader, Motti and Thrawn just get better and better the bigger the fleets become, and don’t need upgrades to shine. I expect Sloane wouldn’t feel as cramped and her veteran aces would be even more terrifying than usual.

I was looking at Ackbar and Raddus and going a Mon cal themed lists

I've played the campaign twice so far, first time using Vader and second time with Sloane. I found both good but preferred Vader as it was easier to run him upgrade-light. Motti seems to be a good choice for Imperials as well.

On the other side, I found the Garm and Ackbar fleets quite difficult to deal with (although that may have just been the players using them). Sato also did quite well the first time we ran the campaign.

I think Sato actually comes into his own quite well in CC. That little points bump is just enough to make him worth his points.

Really most* of the more expensive commanders scale better at 500 points, though: Vader, Ackbar, Tarkin, and Sato all seem to fare substantially better in CC than in tourney lists. All four of them work pretty well in the opening round with upgrade-light ships, too. Tarkin gets less good as the campaign goes on and veteran ships start to decrease his utility, but he's still way better than he is at 400.

*exception being Leia, who remains crap at 500

I have only been a part of one CC campaign, but Mon Mothma was amazing as a Commander for a Rebel MSU list. Having such a great defensive ability at the very start with no lead time for her ability to shine really help keep my fleet alive (unscarred) enough in the first few rounds to get fully upgraded to 500 before anuone else. Add Admonition and Foresight to taste for even better defensive abilities.

1 hour ago, Ardaedhel said:

*exception being Leia, who remains crap at 500

Boooooooooooooo.

I havent done the campaign yet, though I want to at some point. As I normally play Imperials, I decided that when I do eventually play a campaign, I would play rebels to mix it up a bit, I am thinking Sato.

On 1/5/2019 at 10:31 PM, XR8rGREAT said:

Who are your go to Admirals for doing CC. With the restriction of one Upgrade per ship some admirals just don't seem to be as good choices. Because I find once you get the right ship with the right upgrades on them then the chosen admiral starts to shine.

Well, definitely don't pick Admirals based on that first battle where ships are limited to one upgrade. After the first battle, most if not all fleets will be able to stick most or all of their most vaunted upgrades onto their key ships. Especially so for Imperiaals, since they have such a big advantage in the early game (large ships with Gunnery Teams are pretty much powerhouses, and having so much HP they are much harder to actually destroy (and thus scar) and if things start going south for them they can retreat to avoid the scar ... whereas more frail ships with less HP can get popped in one or two rounds and are much more likely to get scarred if they try to engage -- couple this with the fact that I've never seen the Imperials fail a "Show of Force" mission in five Corellian Conflicts (I've also never seen Rebels win a Hyperlane Raid, for what's that worth...) So by the start of Round 2, all of their ships should have all the bells and whistles they want, so there's no reason to pick an Admiral for that single first round upgrade-limited fleet.


Frankly, I don't understand the point of the one-upgrade-per-ship rule in fleet building:
(1) It's pretty much moot by Round 2-3 anyways, as by then ships are usually fully laden with upgrades
(2) It disproportionately hurts ships that want/need lots of upgrades (MC30s, Demos, Interdictors, etc.) while implicitly strengthening large ships that get immense value from just strapping Gunnery Team on for Round 1 and relying on their innate stats
(3) The rule also totally wrecks players who retire fleets and re-roll a new fleet. These players are already on the bottom, they are already going to have to join the fray with a new 400pt fleet likely against 450-500pt fleets (already a very impossibly uphill battle, imho) and they get the added penalty of their underdog down-in-points fleet not being able to put more than upgrade onto their ship.

So, frankly, I'd just jettison this rule entirely, as I cannot fathom the logic behind it...



What rules like this do are they create incentives for players to straight-up avoid the game. Like, if you're trailing in Campaign Points, the strategic thing is to launch an economic mission with your weakest fleet and just avoid combat and then retreat from it... this keeps your underdog fleet from getting wrecked and it denies the winning faction any Campaign Point and instead just gives them credits they cannot use since they've already likely maxed out. Similary, if I have to start a new fleet at 400pts with one upgrade per ship, it makes sense for me to avoid combat and then run away at the start of Turn 4 so I can avoid having to unscar and can then buy more upgrades and increase my fleet's power.

But the issue is that these sorts of decisions--which are strategically sound and interesting--make for miserable gaming experiences for both players involved. Especially if your group plays once a week and everyone travels out and sets up their fleets, only to basically spend the evening not playing the game of Armada at all. It can quickly sour the experience.




The CC is great fun in theory and enjoyable if you've got the right group of players, but it's terribly imbalanced out of the box. The faction that gets the early lead seems to insurmountably disadvantage the other faction (I've never seen Rebels come close to winning, and this is likely do to the innate advantages Imperials have in the early game which carry over as advantages all the way through the experience) and playing the most strategic game you can usually means you're playing the most miserable games of Armada imaginable. This one-upgrade-per-ship rule is one that, while it sounds neat on paper and offers something new to the fleet-building of CC, in practice turns out to be generally problematic.

29 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Well, definitely don't pick Admirals based on that first battle where ships are limited to one upgrade. After the first battle, most if not all fleets will be able to stick most or all of their most vaunted upgrades onto their key ships. Especially so for Imperiaals, since they have such a big advantage in the early game (large ships with Gunnery Teams are pretty much powerhouses, and having so much HP they are much harder to actually destroy (and thus scar) and if things start going south for them they can retreat to avoid the scar ... whereas more frail ships with less HP can get popped in one or two rounds and are much more likely to get scarred if they try to engage -- couple this with the fact that I've never seen the Imperials fail a "Show of Force" mission in five Corellian Conflicts (I've also never seen Rebels win a Hyperlane Raid, for what's that worth...) So by the start of Round 2, all of their ships should have all the bells and whistles they want, so there's no reason to pick an Admiral for that single first round upgrade-limited fleet.


Frankly, I don't understand the point of the one-upgrade-per-ship rule in fleet building:
(1) It's pretty much moot by Round 2-3 anyways, as by then ships are usually fully laden with upgrades
(2) It disproportionately hurts ships that want/need lots of upgrades (MC30s, Demos, Interdictors, etc.) while implicitly strengthening large ships that get immense value from just strapping Gunnery Team on for Round 1 and relying on their innate stats
(3) The rule also totally wrecks players who retire fleets and re-roll a new fleet. These players are already on the bottom, they are already going to have to join the fray with a new 400pt fleet likely against 450-500pt fleets (already a very impossibly uphill battle, imho) and they get the added penalty of their underdog down-in-points fleet not being able to put more than upgrade onto their ship.

So, frankly, I'd just jettison this rule entirely, as I cannot fathom the logic behind it...



What rules like this do are they create incentives for players to straight-up avoid the game. Like, if you're trailing in Campaign Points, the strategic thing is to launch an economic mission with your weakest fleet and just avoid combat and then retreat from it... this keeps your underdog fleet from getting wrecked and it denies the winning faction any Campaign Point and instead just gives them credits they cannot use since they've already likely maxed out. Similary, if I have to start a new fleet at 400pts with one upgrade per ship, it makes sense for me to avoid combat and then run away at the start of Turn 4 so I can avoid having to unscar and can then buy more upgrades and increase my fleet's power.

But the issue is that these sorts of decisions--which are strategically sound and interesting--make for miserable gaming experiences for both players involved. Especially if your group plays once a week and everyone travels out and sets up their fleets, only to basically spend the evening not playing the game of Armada at all. It can quickly sour the experience.




The CC is great fun in theory and enjoyable if you've got the right group of players, but it's terribly imbalanced out of the box. The faction that gets the early lead seems to insurmountably disadvantage the other faction (I've never seen Rebels come close to winning, and this is likely do to the innate advantages Imperials have in the early game which carry over as advantages all the way through the experience) and playing the most strategic game you can usually means you're playing the most miserable games of Armada imaginable. This one-upgrade-per-ship rule is one that, while it sounds neat on paper and offers something new to the fleet-building of CC, in practice turns out to be generally problematic.

Sums up exactly how I feel about CC.

20 hours ago, Darth Sanguis said:

Sums up exactly how I feel about CC.

Nevermind, I was getting too off-topic so I moved i=my reply to its own thread.




As for solid (starting) Admirals in the CC, it's hard to argue with the classics: everyone except Tagge, Garm, and Leia can be pretty successful.

Three ISDs with Gunnery Teams and Admiral Vader/Motti is probably the best 1st Round CC fleet. You won't lose any ships (starting fleets can at best kill a single ISD, and when that ISD starts getting close to death just use the Hyperspace Retreat rule), and you can steamroll the Station Assault to make bank. Then, as you expand, add some upgrades/flotillas/fighters.

1 hour ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

As for solid (starting) Admirals in the CC, it's hard to argue with the classics: everyone except Tagge, Garm, and Leia can be pretty successful.

Not sure I agree with this. I've both run Garm to a Rebel campaign win, and seen another player use a Garm + Yavaris + B-Wings fleet to successfully block the Empire's Show of Force, denying them resources (while typically making 40 resources for the Rebel team).

I haven't had anyone locally use Tagge yet (though I've been playing him for the last few weeks just for fun and could see taking him for a campaign), but I did run a CC campaign starting at 250 points where 1 player took Leia and did quite well. It was an introductory campaign for new players so I restricted it to small and medium ships only. He built a Hammerhead + CR90 swarm which was a ton of fun to play against. I've done 4 full campaigns so far and that one 250-point campaign (400-points maximum) was probably my favorite.

2 minutes ago, Yipe said:

Not sure I agree with this. I've both run Garm to a Rebel campaign win, and seen another player use a Garm + Yavaris + B-Wings fleet to successfully block the Empire's Show of Force, denying them resources (while typically making 40 resources for the Rebel team).

I certainly would never claim that Garm cannot win. But I would say that he's probably got a harder time of winning than other Admirals.

What Garm does have going for him is that he's one of the few Rebel admirals that can sort of work with a broad range of fleets. The other Rebel Admirals tend to be more constraining: Ackbar wants MC80s, MC30s, AFKIIs, or CR90s. Raddus really wants a Liberty, MC75, or MC30 to drop into play. Cracken/Mothma want small fast ships. Dodonna wants a lot of bombers.

Reikaan is universally good, though prefers unique Squadrons I guess. Some people a bit wary to use him in the CC, because triggering his effect still means you're losing ships and paying to unscar things after the battle.

Garm doesn't care so much, in that he gets a lot of tokens whether he's got a lot of small ships all get a token or a few bigger ships each getting three tokens. Garm doesn't define the fleet composition like most of the other Rebel Admirals do, so I could see him as a good fit for somebody who wants a hodgepodge sort of Rebel Salad fleet in the campaign. But if you want to sling Yavaris B-Wings, Reikaan or Dodonna would more often than not do it better.

2 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

everyone except Tagge, Garm, and Leia can be pretty successful.

Ironically the only time I was any good at CC was with a Leia fleet. (Though I've only played about half way through two campaigns). Also interestingly enough the 400 point starter fleet with only a single upgrade per ship was one of my strongest wave 6 fleets.

On 1/8/2019 at 7:36 AM, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Well, definitely don't pick Admirals based on that first battle where ships are limited to one upgrade. After the first battle, most if not all fleets will be able to stick most or all of their most vaunted upgrades onto their key ships. Especially so for Imperiaals, since they have such a big advantage in the early game (large ships with Gunnery Teams are pretty much powerhouses, and having so much HP they are much harder to actually destroy (and thus scar) and if things start going south for them they can retreat to avoid the scar ... whereas more frail ships with less HP can get popped in one or two rounds and are much more likely to get scarred if they try to engage -- couple this with the fact that I've never seen the Imperials fail a "Show of Force" mission in five Corellian Conflicts (I've also never seen Rebels win a Hyperlane Raid, for what's that worth...) So by the start of Round 2, all of their ships should have all the bells and whistles they want, so there's no reason to pick an Admiral for that single first round upgrade-limited fleet.


Frankly, I don't understand the point of the one-upgrade-per-ship rule in fleet building:
(1) It's pretty much moot by Round 2-3 anyways, as by then ships are usually fully laden with upgrades
(2) It disproportionately hurts ships that want/need lots of upgrades (MC30s, Demos, Interdictors, etc.) while implicitly strengthening large ships that get immense value from just strapping Gunnery Team on for Round 1 and relying on their innate stats
(3) The rule also totally wrecks players who retire fleets and re-roll a new fleet. These players are already on the bottom, they are already going to have to join the fray with a new 400pt fleet likely against 450-500pt fleets (already a very impossibly uphill battle, imho) and they get the added penalty of their underdog down-in-points fleet not being able to put more than upgrade onto their ship.

So, frankly, I'd just jettison this rule entirely, as I cannot fathom the logic behind it...



What rules like this do are they create incentives for players to straight-up avoid the game. Like, if you're trailing in Campaign Points, the strategic thing is to launch an economic mission with your weakest fleet and just avoid combat and then retreat from it... this keeps your underdog fleet from getting wrecked and it denies the winning faction any Campaign Point and instead just gives them credits they cannot use since they've already likely maxed out. Similary, if I have to start a new fleet at 400pts with one upgrade per ship, it makes sense for me to avoid combat and then run away at the start of Turn 4 so I can avoid having to unscar and can then buy more upgrades and increase my fleet's power.

But the issue is that these sorts of decisions--which are strategically sound and interesting--make for miserable gaming experiences for both players involved. Especially if your group plays once a week and everyone travels out and sets up their fleets, only to basically spend the evening not playing the game of Armada at all. It can quickly sour the experience.




The CC is great fun in theory and enjoyable if you've got the right group of players, but it's terribly imbalanced out of the box. The faction that gets the early lead seems to insurmountably disadvantage the other faction (I've never seen Rebels come close to winning, and this is likely do to the innate advantages Imperials have in the early game which carry over as advantages all the way through the experience) and playing the most strategic game you can usually means you're playing the most miserable games of Armada imaginable. This one-upgrade-per-ship rule is one that, while it sounds neat on paper and offers something new to the fleet-building of CC, in practice turns out to be generally problematic.

I didnt realize this as as the wording in the rules is. Players may equip only one upgrade card to each small medium or large ship. Its is good to know that this is only when you first build your fleet.

5 minutes ago, XR8rGREAT said:

I didnt realize this as as the wording in the rules is. Players may equip only one upgrade card to each small medium or large ship. Its is good to know that this is only when you first build your fleet.

Yea, immediately after Round 1 players can put as many upgrades onto their ships as they can afford. Which just makes the limit on First Round puzzling, for the reasons that have been offered.

We tried a variant in one CC where ships could only add at most 1 Upgrade between Rounds, to represent like a slower improvement of fleets across the campaign. But it was a real disaster, as it just further incentivized people to avoid ships that need lots of upgrades and it further salted the wounds of players that had to retire and start new fleets.

Does the one upgrade limit apply to a fleet created after round 1?

If so, that is stupid.

17 minutes ago, LTD said:

Does the one upgrade limit apply to a fleet created after round 1?

I believe it does, yes.

I have a crew keen to play CC starting in February - well, one keen, one quite keen, and a number of ring-ins.

I have memories of folks creating rules to fix some of the obvious flaws in the game - can anyone point me to those?

Also, the more I hear about CC the more I'm concerned that the final battle is heavily skewed in favour of the Imperials - all those ISDs lining up with gunnery teams - where can the little rebel ships hide? Is this a legitimate fear?

After playing several campaigns now, as well as a pair of 15-20 hour All Out Offensives, I've developed a few house rules that I feel make for a more enjoyable experience and help fend off the snowball effect (though not entirely as that's probably impossible). Of course, these suggestions are based on my personal preferences. I'm sure other players have found different fixes that work well for them. In a nutshell:

1. Start with smaller fleets (300 points is great, though I've seen Vader, Leia and Ackbar at 250 and they've been a blast to play). Starting smaller gets players away from their standard lists and breaks the assumed meta. In addition, the shopping aspect of the campaign becomes far more interesting with smaller fleets as it takes longer to hit 500 points. Players have a chance to react and change the nature of their fleets in unexpected ways. It's also friendlier to beginners who may not own a large collection of ships/squadrons.

2. Limit the number of Repair Yards each team can start out with. This accomplishes at least three things. First, it changes up where the battles are going to take place so players explore the map a bit more. Second, it makes teams find a use for Diplomats and Skilled Spacers (Diplomats actually become valuable as you can use them to lock out Repair Yards planets). Third, in the later rounds of the campaign it makes for an interesting dilemma — go base hunting for big points or spend a turn trying to grab the empty Repair Yards planets.

I normally have teams start with 1 Repair Yards (so Corellia for the Empire) + 1 additional RY planet if their team takes 2 out of 3 Commanders from a specific list (Leia, Sato, Cracken, Tagge, Konstantine, Tarkin, Ozzel, etc... you decide). This forces teams into a strategic choice that effects the campaign long-term — take what are considered better Commanders but have 5 fewer refit points per player per turn, or start with Commanders that most people feel are subpar, find a way to make them work and get the bonus refit points. In my campaigns players have always done the latter and it's been really fun to see Konstantine, Ozzel, Leia and the like come into their own in campaign play.

3. No base assaults, no special assaults and no assaults on empty Repair Yards planets on turn 1. These restrictions are crucial as they help keeps things balanced for the first 2 turns of the campaign when each team is still getting up to speed. Once players are invested in the "campaign narrative" and having fun, I've found campaigns are far less likely to collapse. It's the first 2 turns that can be real morale killers.

4. Put a cap on each fleet's point value by turn. For example, in a 300-point campaign fleets can only be 350 points on turn 2. Extra points are automatically banked. Turn 3 fleets can be 400 and then on turn 4 it's whatever. At the same time, increase the amount of points players get for rebuilding a fleet. The goal is to keep at most a 50 point differential between fleets.

5. Limit the number of special assaults. I've used 2 methods. Method 1: each team only gets 1 special assault for the whole campaign. Method 2: Each team can declare a maximum of 3 special assaults during the campaign, but each player can only declare a special assault one time.

6. Emphasize the narrative. We've had Tarkin capture Princess Leia and return her to Corellia only to be rescued from execution by Garm at the last minute, Vader on the hunt to turn Leia to the dark side, a multi-game battle for Nubia to break Konstantine's food blockade of the planet, etc... It's Star Wars. Play up the villains, take what the games are giving you and spin them into an on-going story. It's helps make the campaign a more memorable experience instead of solely about winning and losing.

7. Last, but definitely not least, make sure your teams are balanced. Try to have at least one player on each team who is passionate about Armada and can help their teammates make sound choices.

And I'll throw in 7.5 for good measure: While not always possible, it can be helpful to have a knowledgable 3rd party run the campaign and keep track of all the records, forge the narrative, help ensure each player's fleet is halfway competitive, that sort of thing. Almost like a Game Master for Armada.