we played 2 games today with the SSD. I built a Proxy a few weeks ago and its time to put it to the test

the first game was with the STAR DREADNOUGHT COMMAND PROTOTYPE then we had a go STAR DREADNOUGHT ASSAULT PROTOTYPE

click here to see how it went

This pretty much sums up my general feelings toward Armada lately:

3 Hours and 15 Minutes of hot Armada Action, but nearly 2 Hours and 45 minutes of that are spent fiddlin' with squadrons.

22 hours ago, X Wing Nut said:

we played 2 games today with the SSD. I built a Proxy a few weeks ago and its time to put it to the test

the first game was with the STAR DREADNOUGHT COMMAND PROTOTYPE then we had a go STAR DREADNOUGHT ASSAULT PROTOTYPE

click here to see how it went

Is there a synopsis of how it went, I am not watching 3 hours to find out.

2 hours ago, CDAT said:

Is there a synopsis of how it went, I am not watching 3 hours to find out.

The video consists of 3 parts. Actual gameplay is part 1 and 3 viewed from another angle. The middle section seems to be list building (didn't watch). You only would have to watch about 1 1/2 hours to follow the game. But sound and still camera are hard to enjoy.

Inspite of Jerjerrod at the SSD went six straight speed 1 moves. That's a pitty, because it leaves out maneuvering, what is a real fun part and strength of the SSD in my experience. For that gameplay is very static and reduced to lot of dice rolling, what's not very interesting to watch.

The SSD managed to kill the MC75 and the Flotilla. It survived the attacks quite close, it seems. What we may learn is that it's a high-risk-high-reward strategy to try to kill an enemy SSD. If you succeed you will get a 10-1 but if you don't you risk a 3-8 or worse. So no big surprises here, I would say.

9 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

This pretty much sums up my general feelings toward Armada lately:

3 Hours and 15 Minutes of hot Armada Action, but nearly 2 Hours and 45 minutes of that are spent fiddlin' with squadrons.

its going to get worse when the SSD comes out its a tough nut to crack

1 hour ago, Triangular said:

still camera are hard to enjoy.

After more feed back here would 2 or 3 different angles help? or something else?

1 hour ago, Triangular said:

Inspite of Jerjerrod at the SSD went six straight speed 1 moves. That's a pitty, because it leaves out maneuvering, what is a real fun part and strength of the SSD in my experience. For that gameplay is very static and reduced to lot of dice rolling, what's not very interesting to watch.

After seeing this play out I think a lot of games will be like this depending on the objective. with the selection we currently have they are a hard bunch to pick one for a SSD List. with the length of the ship and the angle it move on, unless a new rule comes out on how to move it, I believe if you dont need to nav on the first 2 dials there is a good chance you wont be Nav'ing again.

It was just our first time trying it out we will get on the table again very soon and try some different lists and tactics.

If you have and list you would like to see us try post them here or PM me 😀

On 3/17/2019 at 8:40 AM, X Wing Nut said:

we played 2 games today with the SSD. I built a Proxy a few weeks ago and its time to put it to the test

the first game was with the STAR DREADNOUGHT COMMAND PROTOTYPE then we had a go STAR DREADNOUGHT ASSAULT PROTOTYPE

click here to see how it went

Is f****! HUUUUUGE, 😍

3 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

Is f****! HUUUUUGE, 😍

Yes. Yes it is ☺️

3 hours ago, Triangular said:

Inspite of Jerjerrod at the SSD went six straight speed 1 moves. That's a pitty, because it leaves out maneuvering, what is a real fun part and strength of the SSD in my experience.

Have they said whether the SSD uses the front or rear base when maneuvering?

1 hour ago, X Wing Nut said:

After more feed back here would 2 or 3 different angles help? or something else?

It depends how much work you want to invest. For a enjoyable video you need a camera man and someone who edits the video to get rid of the boring parts. Master of the Fleet does that extremly well. But its understandable if you do it with less cineastic ambition!

1 hour ago, X Wing Nut said:

After seeing this play out I think a lot of games will be like this depending on the objective. with the selection we currently have they are a hard bunch to pick one for a SSD List. with the length of the ship and the angle it move on, unless a new rule comes out on how to move it, I believe if you dont need to nav on the first 2 dials there is a good chance you wont be Nav'ing again.

It was just our first time trying it out we will get on the table again very soon and try some different lists and tactics.

If you have and list you would like to see us try post them here or PM me 😀

Movement is key! Just try it out the next time you play the SSD. It does some extremly surprising moves. (But you have to discuss what should happen if you overlap squadrons. It's weird if you displace them farer away as a rangeruler's length!)

The list I played twice and enjoyed a lot. Piett and Yularen let me do double Command Dials nearly every round:

Admiral Piett SSD (400/400)
Close Range Intel Scan / Salvage Run / Contested Outpost

Star Dreadnought Command Prototype (220) [295]
[Flagship] Admiral Piett (22)
Wulff Yularen (7)
Admiral Chiraneau (10)
Damage Control Officer (5)
Gunnery Team (7)
Expanded Hangar (5)
Leading Shots (4)
XI 7 Turbolasers (6)
All Fighters, Follow Me! (5)

Squadrons [105]
Mauler Mithel (15)
Valen Rudor (13)
Major Rhymer (16)
Captain Jonus (16)
3x YV-666 (3x 15)

3 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

Have they said whether the SSD uses the front or rear base when maneuvering?

Not yet. But the only playable possibility is to use the notch of the rear base.

8 hours ago, CDAT said:

Is there a synopsis of how it went, I am not watching 3 hours to find out.

I mean, generally speaking, Armada is about as fun to watch as paint drying. A lot of X-Wing people who do X-Wing Video Battle reports do two things to make it more watchable: they either have (1) live commentary with the event, where the commentators are explaining things for viewers and filling the down times with discussion OR (2) they aggressively edit the video down to the points of action and remove all the sitting around and planning and thinking moments. Bear in mind, X-Wing games are already substantially shorter and faster paced than Armada, and they have a smaller mat which is much easier to capture on screen. So Armada video reports would doubly benefit from such presentation strategies, but I've never seen a video do either, really. I think there's sufficient demand for it in X-Wing that it's worth all the effort the many content creators sink into it, but likely not the case for Armada.

Nevertheless, I had time to kill while a process was running, so I tried to sift through the video given my general skeptical apprehenisions about the SSD. I did a lot of jumping ahead to find where ships moved and attacked and such, ignoring all the set-up, list-building, and squadron stuff--all said it done, condensed it down to about 20 minutes. I also wanted to see the prototype SSD. @X Wing Nut 's SSD prototype was functionally fantastic, looked great, and worked very well. So kudos there.

There were actually two games.

In the first game, the SSD basically cruised straight forward and rolled piles of dice at the Rebel ships, who rolled piles of dice at the SSD. No ships died, because the Rebel ships peaced out when they got threatened (as they should). All of this ship-movement and ship attacking probably totaled maybe 12 minutes. The entirety of the rest of the match was the fiddily, slow dogfight between the Rebel Squadrons and the Imperial Squadrons. Squadrons were the only thing that died, and one Imp Squadron remained vs two Rebel Squadrons, I think. The winner won by only 5 Points, but I couldn't tell which side won -- either way the entire game was decided by the squads who duked it out with themselves.

In Game 2, the SSD literally just cruised with six 1-Forwards while just repairing like mad, and again the ships rolled piles of dice at one another while the squads slugged it out in all of their grand, slow fiddiliness, as Armada Squadrons do. This time, the SSD's build (they tried both prototypes) just barely killed the MC75 and killed the GR-75, both of which were far less cautious this time. Victory to SSD.



Basically, it sort of reconfirmed a lot of my worries about the SSD and the biggest reason I had always been opposed to the idea of it in all of the speculation threads: the fewer ships that are on the board, the less tactically interesting the game of Armada becomes. Especially when one player's entire force is a single ship, basically, and the game is "will I keep my SSD alive and win this game, or will the opponent do enough damage to it that I lose?" There's no target priority decisions or choices for the SSD's opponent. There's no cat-mouse of which ships the Imp player will activate in what order, it's just will they use their pass or not. I'm sure lots of folks will love having the SSD on the board, but given my own play preferences, I don't see games involving it really improving the parts of Armada that I love, but rather supplanting a lot of what I love about Armada (all the choices upon choices during each Round) with more pile-of-dice gaming. This of course is not to say that there aren't any choices or tactical decisions with an SSD on the board, but there are certainly far fewer of them than when there are more ships on the board.


NOTE: also, in defense of the SSD player, just plodding along at 1-Forward was often the best choice because of squadron overlaps. If the SSD overlaps a bunch of squadrons, the Rebel player has a huge base with which to tactically distribute squadrons. When a squad gets overlapped by an SSD, it can almost teleport across half the map, given how long the base is.

In the early days of X-Wing, it was about squadrons of 4-8 fighters dogfighting squadrons of 4-8 dogfighters. Lots of dials to set, lots of stuff blowing up. Around Wave 4, unique ships and upgrades started getting much better, and soon the era of the "Fat Ship" emerged, where half a list would be a 'super ship' and its pile of upgrades: things like the Millennium Falcon , the Outrider , the TIE Phantom (Whisper), the E-Wing (Corran), the JM5k (Dengar), the K-Wing (Miranda), etc etc etc. It's really why X-Wing needed a 2.0, and it's an open question as to whether or not the improvements in 2.0 have curbed the "Fat Ship" problems that plagued X-Wing 1.0 (tournament data thus far suggests they have, so credit where it's due to FFG).

Nevertheless, for our analogy purposes, a lot of X-Wing players quickly started to bedgrudge this change, because it went from squadrons of fighters blowing each other up to a game that was Fat Ships trying not to die, with far fewer dials, attacks, targets, etc on the board. The game was entirely decided by whether or not you blew up Whisper with one of the few shots you got off on her, or whether or not she managed to shrug them off and survive the entire game. You could often tell about 25 minutes into the game if you were gonna be in a position to bring the Fat Ship down or if you had lost the tools to pull it off... mind you technically playing it out and getting to the end of the game still often took the rest of the 50 minutes even if the writing was on the wall, because the hyper-survivable nature of the Fat Ship's reliable defenses (green modification, regen, arc-avoidance, etc.) meant a lot of the time, stuff just didn't die and the game frequently went to 75 minutes (in the competitive setting, at least). It's sort of the same critiques you see leveled against Modern 40k by "middlehammer" fans: the game now has lots of giant colossal models, flyers, and vehicles and generally less stuff on the board. It's less like two armies of soldiers fighting it out, and more like some Gundam-Zoids having a little fisticuffs. Some people like the change, some people hate it.


For better or worse, the SSD charts Armada boldly into that "Fat Ship" era.

45 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

In the early days of X-Wing, it was about squadrons of 4-8 fighters dogfighting squadrons of 4-8 dogfighters. Lots of dials to set, lots of stuff blowing up. Around Wave 4, unique ships and upgrades started getting much better, and soon the era of the "Fat Ship" emerged, where half a list would be a 'super ship' and its pile of upgrades: things like the Millennium Falcon , the Outrider , the TIE Phantom (Whisper), the E-Wing (Corran), the JM5k (Dengar), the K-Wing (Miranda), etc etc etc. It's really why X-Wing needed a 2.0, and it's an open question as to whether or not the improvements in 2.0 have curbed the "Fat Ship" problems that plagued X-Wing 1.0 (tournament data thus far suggests they have, so credit where it's due to FFG).

Nevertheless, for our analogy purposes, a lot of X-Wing players quickly started to bedgrudge this change, because it went from squadrons of fighters blowing each other up to a game that was Fat Ships trying not to die, with far fewer dials, attacks, targets, etc on the board. The game was entirely decided by whether or not you blew up Whisper with one of the few shots you got off on her, or whether or not she managed to shrug them off and survive the entire game. You could often tell about 25 minutes into the game if you were gonna be in a position to bring the Fat Ship down or if you had lost the tools to pull it off... mind you technically playing it out and getting to the end of the game still often took the rest of the 50 minutes even if the writing was on the wall, because the hyper-survivable nature of the Fat Ship's reliable defenses (green modification, regen, arc-avoidance, etc.) meant a lot of the time, stuff just didn't die and the game frequently went to 75 minutes (in the competitive setting, at least). It's sort of the same critiques you see leveled against Modern 40k by "middlehammer" fans: the game now has lots of giant colossal models, flyers, and vehicles and generally less stuff on the board. It's less like two armies of soldiers fighting it out, and more like some Gundam-Zoids having a little fisticuffs. Some people like the change, some people hate it.


For better or worse, the SSD charts Armada boldly into that "Fat Ship" era.

At least there are both inherent differences and learned lessons between Xwing and Armada... I have it on the rumour mill that avoiding the “Fat Han” concept was high on the design priority, and one of the reasons it took so long to get here.

It is a bit of a shift, but not as dramatic as it could be, beingbthat really, it has both positives and negatives over the Twin ISD it effectively substitutes for.

i guess I’m on the more positive side of “for better or worse “ 😁 .

46 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

In the early days of X-Wing, it was about squadrons of 4-8 fighters dogfighting squadrons of 4-8 dogfighters. Lots of dials to set, lots of stuff blowing up. Around Wave 4, unique ships and upgrades started getting much better, and soon the era of the "Fat Ship" emerged, where half a list would be a 'super ship' and its pile of upgrades: things like the Millennium Falcon , the Outrider , the TIE Phantom (Whisper), the E-Wing (Corran), the JM5k (Dengar), the K-Wing (Miranda), etc etc etc. It's really why X-Wing needed a 2.0, and it's an open question as to whether or not the improvements in 2.0 have curbed the "Fat Ship" problems that plagued X-Wing 1.0 (tournament data thus far suggests they have, so credit where it's due to FFG).

Nevertheless, for our analogy purposes, a lot of X-Wing players quickly started to bedgrudge this change, because it went from squadrons of fighters blowing each other up to a game that was Fat Ships trying not to die, with far fewer dials, attacks, targets, etc on the board. The game was entirely decided by whether or not you blew up Whisper with one of the few shots you got off on her, or whether or not she managed to shrug them off and survive the entire game. You could often tell about 25 minutes into the game if you were gonna be in a position to bring the Fat Ship down or if you had lost the tools to pull it off... mind you technically playing it out and getting to the end of the game still often took the rest of the 50 minutes even if the writing was on the wall, because the hyper-survivable nature of the Fat Ship's reliable defenses (green modification, regen, arc-avoidance, etc.) meant a lot of the time, stuff just didn't die and the game frequently went to 75 minutes (in the competitive setting, at least). It's sort of the same critiques you see leveled against Modern 40k by "middlehammer" fans: the game now has lots of giant colossal models, flyers, and vehicles and generally less stuff on the board. It's less like two armies of soldiers fighting it out, and more like some Gundam-Zoids having a little fisticuffs. Some people like the change, some people hate it.


For better or worse, the SSD charts Armada boldly into that "Fat Ship" era.

You've perfectly voiced my concerns. Add on the whole "unique cards coming behind a $200 paywall" thing, and you've got why I'm so opposed to the SSD and other huge ships. I would be lying if I said I wasn't seriously concerned about the state of Armada over the next year.

For what it's worth, I started my gaming hobby as a 40k player back in high school. Came in just at the tail end of 3rd edition, played through 4th and 5th. Flyers was the beginning of the end for that game. For so long, it was sci-fi World War I. Troops battling it out with a few tanks on the board. Then came the planes... I haven't truly enjoyed a game of 40k since then.

57 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

and more like some Gundam- Zoids having a little fisticuffs.

0__0

Yes please?

My custom Genobreaker is ready.

6 hours ago, Triangular said:

What we may learn is that it's a high-risk-high-reward strategy to try to kill an enemy SSD. If you succeed you will get a 10-1 but if you don't you risk a 3-8 or worse. So no big surprises here, I would say.

First tournament I go to after the SSD releases I'm tempted to just bring some insane whaling fleet that's designed to hard counter SSDs. Happy to lose to the other lists, just to ruin the day for big shiny SSD people 😈

I dont feel like the SSD will be super dominant. I think it will have a good list or two but for how big it is I just dont see it being meta nominating, and even if it becomes that way I think this ship will be an SSD killer.

MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63)
• Intel Officer (7)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• Rapid Reload (8)
• H9 Turbolasers (8)
• Admonition (8)
= 98 Points

They can take Tua and ECMs to get around this but with how large your base is I'll just put B-wings in front of you and that will be a nightmare as well.

The SSD is so big its just going to be so easy to double arch and will almost always be overlapping squadrons/obsticals. I could be wrong, but I just don't see it being super dominant, as if it ever does I feel the meta will just shift and adapit to take it out.

15 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

This pretty much sums up my general feelings toward Armada lately:

3 Hours and 15 Minutes of hot Armada Action, but nearly 2 Hours and 45 minutes of that are spent fiddlin' with squadrons.

I mean ever since the Battle of Midway, yeah.

Here's my take on the SSD, for better or worse.

price: I'm retired military with disposable income, so don't care, albeit I will admit that this IS going to be an issue for most folks.

fat Han: I don't think this will necessarily be an issue. I think with my usual tourney list I can take one down, but I'll admit it will require very good flying. With how expensive it is both in dollars and points, I don't think it's going to be a huge presence at tourneys.

I think, given the Sector Fleet rules, that it will have more play in those rules, as in scenarios or one off large battles as opposed to regular tourney play.

Finally....it's an SSD. I'm getting one, even if all it does is sit on a shelf looking awesome. 😄

1 hour ago, Darth Lupine said:

even if all it does is sit on a shelf looking awesome. 😄

I'm getting one specifically for that lol

2 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

I'm getting one specifically for that lol

I've been considering getting two, one for display and one fr game.

Just now, Darth Lupine said:

I've been considering getting two, one for display and one fr game.

Only problem is I'm outta space... I'm gonna have to put up a shelf

9 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

Only problem is I'm outta space... I'm gonna have to put up a shelf

At 24” long, it **is** a shelf.