If I was tasked with designing a sweeping update to Armada, one of the first balance changes I would attempt would be to remove defense tokens from ace squadrons. This would require a redesign of all the aces who interact with defense tokens (Jan, Morna and the new Lando come to mind) and probably lots of points adjustments too, but I think it would be worth it to try to mend the efficiency gap between ace and generic squadrons. Because apart from that gap, playing the squadron game is one of my favorite aspects of playing Armada.

I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts. 🙂

Kill scatter and your done, replace it with brace or make it one use only.

1 minute ago, Englishpete said:

Kill scatter and your done, replace it with brace or make it one use only.

Or treat scatter the same way every other Damage Mitigation for Squadrons is effectively taken so far...

"Cancel Damage to a Minimum of One."

1 minute ago, Drasnighta said:

Or treat scatter the same way every other Damage Mitigation for Squadrons is effectively taken so far...

"Cancel Damage to a Minimum of One."

I would still use it, if it was designed like that.

1 hour ago, Drasnighta said:

Or treat scatter the same way every other Damage Mitigation for Squadrons is effectively taken so far...

"Cancel Damage to a Minimum of One."

I can get behind that.

3 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

Or treat scatter the same way every other Damage Mitigation for Squadrons is effectively taken so far...

"Cancel Damage to a Minimum of One."

I think that would be a good rule for scatter across the board, not just with squadrons. I think I'll test that out...

Or people could learn to stop bunching their squads at which point aces lose value.

Usually you can buy two generics for a the same cost as a double brace squad. If we value the hull of a double brace squad as double, they have;

Half the anti squad

Half the anti ship

Half the attacks

The same amount of hull

I can not understand the hate for the scatter. I have been playing from day one, and can not remember ever being able to use it once. Now maybe it is just my luck that sucks, but every time they shoot at my fighter with scatter they always get at least one accuracy (or do no damage at all).

There is another solution to aces and squadrons problem. Instead acitvating a certain number of squadrons there could be acitvating squadrons worth certain amount of points. For example, ISD can acitivate 50 points of squadrons. With this it can activate Maarek Steele worth 21 points and decimator worth 22 points (together 43 points) or it can activate 6 tie fighters worth 48 points. Squadron token adds points to ships activation number.

That way you must decide what to do with your squadron activations because it's expensive to activate named squadrons.

Certain ships with low activation number could activate expensive squadrons only with combining squadron token or there could be rule that you can activate squadrons up to a activation number of your ship or only one squadron.

Thoughts?

9 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

Or treat scatter the same way every other Damage Mitigation for Squadrons is effectively taken so far...

"Cancel Damage to a Minimum of One."

I love the idea. Not sure if necessary but it feels good.

10 hours ago, BrickDaniels said:

I  would attempt would be to remove defense tokens from ace squadr  on  s. 

This does not really address MMJ. Morna loses her reroll but that’s it. The basic premise and most of the effectiveness is still right there.

1 hour ago, dodam1 said:

There is another solution to aces and squadrons problem. Instead acitvating a certain number of squadrons there could be acitvating squadrons worth certain amount of points.

Clunky, but if you give each squad a activation value you'd achieve fairly similar.

Not a fan in retrofitting the game for this personally though.

To give further basis for why I dont see any issues, but consider the real issue to be a list building culture problem.

I got king of swiss at UK Nationals with this squad ball;

1 Major Rhymer ( 16 points)
4 TIE Phantom Squadrons ( 56 points)
3 TIE Interceptor Squadrons ( 33 points)
1 Maarek Stele ( 21 points)
1 TIE Fighter Squadron ( 8 points)
= 134 total squadron cost

As you can see I am maxed out on aces and in particular those pesky scatter aces.

Deployment delay is a real thing, and for that you need high number of drops aka generics not aces.

Most fighters in the game average around 2 damage. So a generic tie can generally take 2 shots then it will die. If you look at howlerunner she is the cost of 2 tie fighter squadrons together, but how durable is she? Well again most squadrons do an average of around 2 damage rounded up or down so we we say she never get to use her scatter because of an accuracy she can take average hits so not as durable as 2 ties as combined they would be able to take 4 hits. However lets say she now always gets use of scatter it now takes 5 attacks from squadrons to kill her meaning her durability is more than double that of two tie fighters, but she still has less attacks, but then you factor in her ability it kind of evens that out. While I agree with @Ginkapo that " the real issue to be a list building culture problem." as people have just become to comfortable with what is "good" that they don't try something new. I do think that aces are just a little bit too effective and I think the suggested change by @Drasnighta will to make scatter "Cancel Damage to a Minimum of One." would strike a great balance meaning Howlerunner is only slightly more durable then a regular Tie fighter in most cases, and would make it so that players are taking aces more for the ability that they bring to there squadron ball than there durability, however this could also be accomplished by tech that give squadrons accuracies when attacking other squadrons in some why.

Kudos to @Ginkapo for once again proving that underappreciated squadrons can do well in good hands.

That said, I feel that the problem doesn't lie in the aces per se but in the snowball-like nature of the squadron minigame itself. If you manage to strike first and strike hard, you'll win 90% of the time.

Even assuming that generics are just as cost efficient as aces, they aren't as activation-efficient and that's a problem for 2 reasons.

First, if you bring more squadrons you need to bring more ships to activate them, and those are not free, meaning that generics are actually LESS cost-efficient after all.

Second, it will take more ship activations to put all your squadrons in action. A list that can unleash more than 80% of it's anti-squadron firepower in a single ship activation has a massive advantage over a list that requires 2-3 separate activations to do the same - because by the time they get there, the squadron force they were meant to activate might no longer exist.

I'm not sure how to resolve this without completely overhauling the squadron minigame. I don't think it will be possible in Armada 1.0.

I personally never understood why everyone thinks scatter tokens are the problem

4 hours ago, Lightrock said:

Second, it will take more ship activations to put all your squadrons in action. A list that can unleash more than 80% of it's anti-squadron firepower in a single ship activation has a massive advantage over a list that requires 2-3 separate activations to do the same - because by the time they get there, the squadron force they were meant to activate might no longer exist.

"Blast it Biggs where are you...."

Scatter is so very not the issue.

My personal gripe is with highly self sufficient high-hull aces that are good at everything.

I'd love to see a lot of generics get a little cheaper so you can run more of em.

Squadrons are fine the way they are no need to change them.

The comment about scatter reduce damage to a minimum of 1 has me intrested tho. Make it easier to hit those little support ships. Only down side is 3 squadrons with scatter will struggle to hold of a bomber wing.

Will be think on this for a bit

I still would like to see: each Ace has to be accompanied by at least one base squad for its type.

13 minutes ago, Thraug said:

I still would like to see: each Ace has to be accompanied by at least one base squad for its type.

You see, that makes sense for things like X-wings and B-Wings and A-Wings and Defenders...

But it seems *very* out of place for Millenium Falcons, Slave Is and Mouldy Crows...

1 hour ago, Drasnighta said:

You see, that makes sense for things like X-wings and B-Wings and A-Wings and Defenders...

But it seems *very* out of place for Millenium Falcons, Slave Is and Mouldy Crows...

Make a distinction between SQUADRONs and Smaller-than-Flotillia sized items then? Like, MULTI-MODEL SQUADON and SINGLE-MODEL SQUADRON. Because your right, it would be very out of place for the bigger than a squadron, smaller than a flotilla.

On the other hand though, I would actually like to see rather a number of squadrons, per card. IE: A TIE squadron has 3 squadrons per card, and xwings has 2 per card. ACEs are a replacement to one of those squadrons for the points cost of the ACE (points dont change at all) This would make it more like fighter wings being controlled than single squadrons. When you use an activation, instead of a single squadron, you activate a wing of squadrons that do all their actions technically at the same time.

IE: Wing 1 is activated, then moves into engagement range of Wing 2, then fires at Wing 2, damage is dealt, then Wing 2 may counter if able, then any squadrons destroyed are removed.

Much like War of the Ring, where the combat finishes, then models are removed from wounds.

Likely isnt the best idea, but is one that would require less reworking of rules while also changing aspects of the game.

18 minutes ago, Ling27 said:

Like, MULTI-MODEL SQUADON and SINGLE-MODEL SQUADRON.

That Distinction already exists in the rules.

"Squadron" and "Irregular Squadron"

However, it still doesn't account for Irregular Squadron Items independently Named, versus those which are not... For example, Morna Kee in a VT49-Decimator, and the VT49-Decimator itself, versus say, Boba Fett in the Slave 1, or Bossk in the Hounds Tooth..

Why should someone need to take a VCX before they can use the "Ghost", when in reality, the Ghost is the only VCX we've ever seen? Why do we need an Aluminium Falcon before we can take a Milennium Falcon when again, its the only YT-1300 we ever see depicted.

Why are we drawing that line... If we do draw that line, do we Exempt or Include Colonel Jendon in the Lambda Class Shuttle?

Just a lot of Theory questions to answer, and I am 1000% convinced that there wil always be a complaint

1 minute ago, Drasnighta said:

Just a lot of Theory questions to answer, and I am 1000% convinced that there wil always be a complaint

This is 100% true, us people will complain about everything

2 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Just a lot of Theory questions to answer, and I am 1000% convinced that there wil always be a complaint

I agree. I dont mind the squadron game, now that I have begun to use it more effectively myself; however, I would rather take more ships than squadrons. I just wish Flaking was better.

I 100% believe that if flaking was better, there would be less issue with squadrons.

I fall firmly in the "Squadrons are fine just the way they are! If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" camp.

I would much rather see more flack upgrades, and upgrades that boost generic squadrons somehow.