4 hours ago, Fraggle_Rock said:I kind of want to run Rebellion in the Rim with Squadron limits per ships. I think that would drastically change game-play.
Not to be a nay-sayer on this, but as a well-researched Imperial Intel Officer, I'd have to point out...
...that's kind of like, the Rebels whole thing. Their fighters all have hyperdrives, so operating independently of support ships is their de rigueur.
On 1/6/2020 at 1:48 PM, Cap116 said:The Arquitens could arguably be the best frigate in the game, especially after RitR added the LTTs, Expert Shield Tech, and even Aux Shield Team
The Arquitens is nice, and a frigate in literally all but name, but I would like to see either the Imperial Razor class Frigate from the Canon EU, or the FFG created Imperial Active class Fast Frigate mentioned in the RPG make it into Armada. Now if either of the last two make it in I'm sure both they and the Arquitens will appear in most, if not all of my Imperial fleets. And I'll probably make at least one fleet entirely of what ever combination from the three classes makes it into the game.
On 1/6/2020 at 1:48 PM, Cap116 said:The Arquitens could arguably be the best frigate in the game, especially after RitR added the LTTs, Expert Shield Tech, and even Aux Shield Team
On 1/6/2020 at 2:33 PM, Grathew said:Arquitens command with RBD, LTT, Expert Shield Tech, and Aux Shield team sounds expensive but amazing. I'll need to try it.
Way to expensive for my tastes personally.
5 hours ago, TallGiraffe said:
Way to expensive for my tastes personally.
The cheap version isn't hard on points at only 66.
Arquitens Light Cruiser (54)
• Expert Shield Tech (5)
• Linked Turbolaser Towers (7)
= 66 Points
I think its a good escort/frigate to accompany an ISD in a thematic fleet
Eh, FWIW. There is another major impulse in fleet design. It's maybe a subset of formulaic, but came to mind considering the OP question. Some of us are explorers and some are perfectors.
My usual local nemesis is a perfector. He used internet data and commentary to build a great formulaic fleet and then plays it to work at perfection and considers other new meta-making fleets for their merits to either adapt towards or against.
I'm an explorer. I'm always looking for the next unturned-stone of combinations that will do something neat that others haven't found to work yet. I run a lot of 'bad' fleets with odd combos trying to make a subtle trick work. However, aside from the new experimental concept, I often build the rest of my fleet to make a thematic reason for the new experiment to have some theme. It's a "what if" of both mechanics and story many times that I play.
Preparing for a tournament is a thin sliver of my armada time. That tends to be far more game-mechanics based, but those fleets have almost taken on a story of their own because I've flown certain ships and unique upgrades so much it's hard not to think of them like a fleet that has gained and lost members over time in some small corner of the canon that no one ever put into a novel, comic or screenplay.
2 hours ago, deDios said:I'm an explorer. I'm always looking for the next unturned-stone of combinations that will do something neat that others haven't found to work yet. I run a lot of 'bad' fleets with odd combos trying to make a subtle trick work.
I don't play competitively (or even outside of my core group of gaming friends), but I do the same. A lot of the time, my thought is, "Can I make this work?" I ran an entire Corellian Conflict campaign with Admiral Konstantine, even though his ability is rather terrible, because I wanted to see if I could make it work (spoiler: I couldn't! haha).
18 hours ago, deDios said:There is another major impulse in fleet design. It's maybe a subset of formulaic, but came to mind considering the OP question. Some of us are explorers and some are perfectors.
I think this would make a good counter axis to the OP one. As I tend to explore concepts through a formulaic approach.
With that said anyone who playes even remotely competitively has some perfector in them. As building a competitive list with out putting it on the table is difficult in my experience.
I don’t play nearly as often as I would like, so my list building goes like this: “I just got this new toy. How can I build around it?”
The formulaic player that I mostly am, is bothered by all the unique upgrades, commanders and aces. Whilst they can be great for certain themes and enrich gameplay beyond measure, they make setting your battles in your own corner of the conflict pretty impossible. That's what I always liked about many other tabletop wargames, making up my own force w/o any preexisting characters.
On 1/15/2020 at 3:29 PM, LennoxPoodle said:The formulaic player that I mostly am, is bothered by all the unique upgrades
Actually I am too ( but as a thematic player) and I try to use them proportionally to the game play. For example, I have more fun if there is one unique squadron and many other generic squadrons, it feels more realistic.
Apart from SSD ( I love Vader choking everyone ), I would try to minimize unique commanders. If there are too many familiar faces in the game then I begin to look at them just as numbers rather than characters.
44 minutes ago, LostFleet said:Actually I am too ( but as a thematic player) and I try to use them proportionally to the game play. For example, I have more fun if there is one unique squadron and many other generic squadrons, it feels more realistic.
Apart from SSD ( I love Vader choking everyone ), I would try to minimize unique commanders. If there are too many familiar faces in the game then I begin to look at them just as numbers rather than characters.
It's funny, because I kind of have the opposite perspective. I love mixing and matching the characters I love from the movies and books because (to me) it makes the game feel more story-like. That's one of the reasons I am holding out hope for the sequel trilogy. Yes, the Resurgent-class is probably my favorite ship in all of Star Wars, and I'd love to field one or two, but what I really want is to be able to play with Kylo, Rey, Poe, Finn, Snap, Rose, Phasma, Hux, Old Man Lando... heck, even Holdo (I'm not joking when I say I'd be up for some type of Holdo Maneuver upgrade card, ridiculous though it may be).
I much prefer saying "I'm going to move Boba Fett over here to attack your corvette" than "I'm going to move my Firespray attack bomber over here..." 
3 minutes ago, Rmcarrier1 said:"I'm going to move Boba Fett over here to attack your corvette" than "I'm going to move my Firespray attack bomber over here..."
What I meant was, let me have the Boba Fett and a bunch of Tie fighters rather than let me have Ciena, Jonus and Jendon combo because they always work together.
On 1/15/2020 at 4:29 AM, LennoxPoodle said:The formulaic player that I mostly am, is bothered by all the unique upgrades, commanders and aces. Whilst they can be great for certain themes and enrich gameplay beyond measure, they make setting your battles in your own corner of the conflict pretty impossible. That's what I always liked about many other tabletop wargames, making up my own force w/o any preexisting characters.
You should DEFINITELY look into Rebellion in the Rim, then. You are seriously limited in what uniques you can get in that campaign, which changes the feel of the game a lot.
And, IMHO for thematic players, the idea of the 'side missions' really gives you that extra twist as a commander - feeling like you are in your own corner of the universe, running a 'standard'-ish fleet, but stretched to the limit with high command always giving you more tasks than you can easily do; so compromises and tough decisions have to be made.
18 minutes ago, LostFleet said:
What I meant was, let me have the Boba Fett and a bunch of Tie fighters rather than let me have Ciena, Jonus and Jendon combo because they always work together.
That’s fun, too! 😎
On 1/15/2020 at 10:29 PM, LennoxPoodle said:The formulaic player that I mostly am, is bothered by all the unique upgrades, commanders and aces. Whilst they can be great for certain themes and enrich gameplay beyond measure, they make setting your battles in your own corner of the conflict pretty impossible. That's what I always liked about many other tabletop wargames, making up my own force w/o any preexisting characters.
I used to be very much this way when I played Warhammer fantasy. I didn't use named characters for a number of reasons.
1) They often died. It felt wrong to so carelessly kill off someone else's character. It also killed the illusion for me when a major character of the overall story died in our tiny little battle. Sure, there was the whole 'they're not really dead, just knocked out or something' but that wears thin really fast.
2) The standard sized 'armies' that we'd field with them were often really small. Say a hundred troops or less. Why was Mr important guy constantly finding battle with nothing more than his drinking buddies? Where were his other 3000+ troops? And why does it feel like the emperor is present at every single border skirmish?
When I came to armada it bothered me a little less, at least for the rebel side. A lot of their fighting in this scale was done by their heros because they really didn't have much of anything else.
The Empire on the other hand...
In a navy that has millions? Billions? of TIE's, why does it seem like the Empire can't send a fleet to do anything unless the aces present outnumber the generics?
Edited by Flengin6 hours ago, Flengin said:The Empire on the other hand...
In a navy that has millions? Billions? of TIE's, why does it seem like the Empire can't send a fleet to do anything unless the aces present outnumber the generics?
"This is clone Cienna-3. She weirdly is a big fan of Valen Rude-4 and Colonel Jend-1. Refuses to fly into battle without them, and since they're ALLLLLLL clones, eh, go for it. Well just make more if we need to."
No one questions the fact that it's the same 6 rebel pilots flying every mission in every pivotal battle in the 3 GCW Star Wars movies. They get to be main characters. It's much harder to mine equivalent counterparts for the empire simply because they are faceless. If you want to consider Ciena Ree "that one-of-billions interceptor pilot who is just a cut above the rest of his squad mates" that's totally fine and completely believable and harmonious with the movie-exclusive universe. But the pressure is to match aces with aces for the face value, even though that's more the artistic aspects of game design interacting with the "band of rag tag heroes versus big faceless empire" trope.
On 1/15/2020 at 1:29 PM, LennoxPoodle said:The formulaic player that I mostly am, is bothered by all the unique upgrades, commanders and aces. Whilst they can be great for certain themes and enrich gameplay beyond measure, they make setting your battles in your own corner of the conflict pretty impossible. That's what I always liked about many other tabletop wargames, making up my own force w/o any preexisting characters.
Okay guys, I screwed up in a major way. I meant the thematic player that I am. I like my battles to be possible in the same universe as the Canon media. That mainly means not touching any important people. Also the engagement size is usually a bit small for Ackbar or even worse Palpatine being present. So I always felt like @Flengin since my Warhammer days. Why the heck should Marneus Calgar, lord of the entire realm of Ultramar or even more ridiculous now Robert Gulliman, Lord Regent of a million (or was it billion?) worlds participate in every Skirmish with a 100 dudes total? IMHO at least the day to day battle (not some narrative special events) aspects of such tabletop games should always be more about the setting and less the story of the universe it is set in.