Welcome back to another episode of Galactic Conflict! On today’s episode I have Carlo, Norm and Yik joining me. We talk about Worlds, I spoil some rumours from a reliable source and discuss the prevalence of full sqns in lists at Worlds. And also touch on the Campaign article. I hope you enjoy!
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Great episode I think Yik might be on to something, having Kallus on both sides and having a minimum point value of squadrons might help the game balance itself out, I have personally thought (probably a minority) that a minimum squadron count should have been a part of the game from the start, help balance out both extremes. Demo with Kallus is solid it's just a few extra points to get a flexible ship and does not limit your options.
My only issue with a minimum is that right now it's just dead points. With few exceptions, you have to go for broke or not bother. Even Nathan, who at a glance would appear to have gone lighter, was in the 121+ bracket. Alex was the closest thing to a medium wing in the top 10, and she still had over 100 points invested.
Also, don't touch my squadless. I need my adrenaline fueled reckless stupidity 
The greatest flaw in requiring squadrons is the traditional cut rounds.
Yay! World Champion because he/she won by taking out a Z-95 and running away!
How crazy would introducing GENERIC OBJECTIVE CARDS (that apply to both players - haven't figured out how it's chosen) while playing with the 2nd player's Objectives?
Just spitballing...
Bounty Hounter: For each squadron Ace destroyed (10)
Annihilate Them: For tabling (not sure in the pure sense or not, e.g. flotillas) (50)
Mining: When a squadron ends its turn on an asteroid (5). Asteroids have 5 "hull" and only ships may attack. If destroyed, all squadrons on it are destroyed (15).
Entrapment: At end of game, if you control ships that are closest on both of the short edges of the map. (50)
Our Only Hope: At end of game, whoever controls the lowest cost ship. (25)
I get it... someone will eventually find a degenerate combo, but think of the chaos... AND fun!!!
I like your ideas...Q I would think in some sort of league environment they might actually be a definite add on.
As for sqns. I find since we have not had a new release since pre worlds 2018 that the meta has been shifting and reacting to itself over the past year. Worlds 2018 was sqn heavy (and rebel focused at the top) then came GENCON, EUROS, UK nats, US NATS, where all ship high activation or double ISD found a solution ....then people reacted to that and went Pryce, or sqn heavy to take down a large ship or prevent an optimum radus drop. Then regionals came ...and net listing hit the meta hard with Thrawn 2 ship (being extremely fun to play losing or winning) came along and imperial players grabbed on. Then everyone who went to worlds figured 2 ship will be there....as will all ship.....as will double large... so people designed their fleets to either be one of those or counter one of those. I went with a counter to 2 ship and never faced any. Closest being Jeremy's Interdictor 3 ship Thrawn build. For some reason 2 Large almost disappeared, LMSU was mostly rare except for people that had achieved success with it previously. And all the thrawn 2 ship people met in the middle and nuked each other. So I expect prior to the SSD dropping, we will have UK nats, EUROS and possibly NOVA and Canadian Nats, and I am betting that people will be coming up with counters to the current situation by then, and we will see a slightly different meta yet again.
Now as for heavy sqns...vs light or med. When I build a ship, I tend to make it a xmas tree and take advantage of every slot. The more points the more efficient it becomes. Especially on the more expensive ships. I think sqns might have an inherent similarity built into them. If you just want some basic strategic then a couple VCX or shuttles might be fine cause you aren't expecting much out of them. But the minute you start creeping up to 70-100 range it becomes like an GSD that you don't put ordnance experts and some missile and at least SFO on. Not enough to scare anyone and if you run into a bigger GSD or with the title...might as well not have come. So pushing that sqn build to the max creates depth and a lot of times efficiency in abilities to make it all work better. That is why 134 points of sqns is more common and better, just like an 80 - 98 version GSD is better than its 56 base version or 170 points in an ISD is stronger than a 130 point version.
I have always thought every time I build sqns say to 80 points...I could just add a cheap demo for the same price and get another activation. Which is great until you run into rebel aces. I actually disagree with my guests. I never worried about facing sloane lists when I ran all ship as I out activated their lists usually so badly that I could wait and then come in and annihilate its ability to push and get away while sustaining a minimum of damage. The rebel aces with their reliable bombing mostly with 2 dice backed up by BCC and toryn far and oftentimes reeikan or dodonna made such an attack usually fatal for all but a motti ISD with EWS and if reeikan was there the pushing ship was still around to block you and hold you in position for the bombers to get a chance at you again.
I oftentimes think people also have a knee jerk reaction to whatever handles their personal treasured list so handily. I know I get annoyed with Bail and Nym like crazy as I have been burned by both to the point where I think they are must haves for rebels but the data doesn't back them up. I personally started playing thrawn 2 ship as a means of learning how to beat it. It turned out to be quite fun to play but it has a lot of inherent weaknesses in the build but again every ship is built for efficiency and the sqns are maxed for efficiency. Once I learned how to win with it. I wasn't worried about the list anymore. I helped my buddy Mat last year with his version of pre nerf Rieekan aces that he used to win US Nats in 2017 and we practiced non stop over vassal making sure he recognized all the weaknesses that was inherent in the build (not many) but that he wouldn't make mistakes by exposing them. And let the sqns in that build and their synergies do the work.
As for Morna Marrek and Jendon. I recognize they are a strong combo. All very expensive, 68 points for 3 sqns. basically half of what you can bring. So it should be expensive and good. And for imperials outside the over priced Tie Defender there are no multi-role sqns that can bomb as well as fight sqns. Fire sprays are good bombers but suck at fighting sqns. And any of the cheap generics get one shot by opponents sqns or destroyed by anti-sqn fire from ships. So it feels that Imperials have no choice but to take 2 or all 3 of those sqns if they want to do more than just one role. With no Toryn far of our own to allow the non bombers to re-roll (outside of sloane) it makes taking them a non-efficient choice. There is also the inherent limitation of pushing the sqns that is a problem. Sure bring 16 ties....but you are just feeding them to your opponent over 3 turns.
I personally hope that in the future there are upgrades that encourage the use of generics over aces or that ships have some sort of better counter or protection against sqns to bring a more natural balance to the game. Rather than some sort of imposing of limits to creativity and build types by allowing only so much aces or whatever. In a similar vein I felt that FFG's nerfing of the amount of flotillas we could bring was heavy handed and that if someone wanted to bring a defiance and 7 flotillas great....I throw everything at your defiance and lose my ISD for a tabling of your fleet. There would be that risk for tabling. High risk high reward but wouldn't stymie the creativity of list building.
But I digress. As for the other hot topic that is out there in the community. I doubt a 2.0 is financially in the cards, as Xwing was broken as F@#$K and needed it or the game was going to die and with their player base they couldn't afford to let it die. I have a strong feeling that if our game got to the point where people weren't playing or buying anymore because the game was broken...then it would just die. Games reach a max population at a certain point and sustainability is what a company keeps in mind when deciding how much money to keep re-investing in the game.
I personally think the game is in a great spot right now....After a year of no releases the meta is still constantly evolving and that is what makes Armada a truly great game (even current xwing seems to stabilize a month after points change) Besides when the SSD and Campaign come out ....all this goes out the window and we can start complaining about trying to kill that thing.
2 hours ago, Mogrok said:personally hope that in the future there are upgrades that encourage the use of generics over aces or that ships have some sort of better counter or protection against sqns to bring a more natural balance to the game. Rather than some sort of imposing of limits to creativity and build types
I agree with this I just have a hard time seeing how this could be done. I would like to see lists from all over the spectrum, but if you give a ship an upgrade to combat squadrons if you face all ship then its dead points. I do like Kallus on the GSD but it is dead weight when I come against all ship lists.
I think there are two ways to remedy this either impose a minimum squadron point for every list, and/or have upgrades that are flexible and good against both ships and squadrons. After thinking about it I think FFG might be going the latter EWS is an exsample of this another is the upcoming Iden Versio I think she is best on the raider protecting it from squadrons, but has some applications against ships, but her with Instigator could cause issues for squadron fleets that dont also have decent ship to ship firepower.
Raider I-Class Corvette (44 points)
- Instigator ( 4 points)
- Iden Versio ( 6 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- External Racks ( 3 points)
= 61 total ship cost
you can even deliver a payload into a ship and put a raid token to make the ships life a little harder, and as long as you are in an arch that is not to scary at close range she can still have an decent ability aginst all ship lists.
Even with that change however I dont see medium squadronds making a comeback as adding these kind of upgrades are more an indirect nerf to squadrons so you just start seeing more all ship lists. however if they also added upgrades that beifited your ship to ship game when you have squadrons on the table in some way, and more squadrons that supported ships like Captian Jonus that might start to create an intresting dynamic where the all ship lists take the versatile anti-squadron tech, and the heavy squadrons list take the upgrades to buff their squadrons/benefit their ships for useing squadrons, and the medium fighter lists can have a balancing act of of both, but you get more value from the upgrades that benefit your ships for having squadrons as you will have more/better ships then a squadron heavy list. This could be intresting and might work.
Edit: this was more a think out loud thing so sorry if it got rabbley or contradicts itself a points just thinking it though and sparking a discussion.
Edited by xero989