Evening Gents,

After a good couple of years hiatus I have returned to the world of Armada and need some of your collective expert advice.

I have missed out on quite a few ships, but I see I have returned during a time of drought where Armada ships available to purchase are concerned! I have managed to hunt down a UK supplier with a few bits so I have ordered an Onager, Hammerhead corvette & a Gozanti. I will list what I own below so you can see the gaps i have. What’s playing really well at the moment, what should be top of my purchasing list when the stock is released from the warehouse?

Also what have i missed?!? Whats been hitting it off and what has been plummeting to earth? I see that the time of mass activations seems to have evolved, now seeing some lists with only 3 ships on, what’s going on!

Hope you’ve all been keeping well & Cheers!

Core Set - Correlian Conflict (Haven't played it yet!)

1 x VSD - 2 x ISD - 4 x Raider - 3 x Gladiator - 3 x Imp Fighters - 2 x Rogues

1 x CR90 - 1 x Nebulon - 1 x Pelta - 3 x Assault Friagtes - 1 x Home One - 1 x Liberty - 2 x Rebel Fighters - 2 x Rebel Fighters II - 2 x MC30 - 2 x Rebel Transports

On order: 1xOnager - 1xHammerhead Corvettes - 1xGozanti

Hi and welcome back!

Three ships, heck; thanks to Governor Pryce, you can do very well with two.

Admiral Raddus just received a nerf but continues to be a very strong archetype in his own right.

Though Agate and the Starhawk are brand new, general consensus is they're hella tanky.

Admiral Sloane is fragile, but can bring a full wing of dedicated fighter aces and wreck ships and squads alike with them.

Maarek Steele, Morna Kee and Colonel Jendon are a scary bombing group.

The SSD Assault Prototype is a beast under Jerjerrod, with Ravager and Annihilator being the most popular titles.

Rieekan is still a thing.

Really a lot of stuff is viable. Even MSU might make a comeback against the Onager.

I'd recommend prioritizing Chimaera and Profundity; the ships are all fantastic, can be run under almost any commander in a lot of fleets, and come with top-tier upgrades like Captain Brunson and Heavy Ion Emplacements.

If you like Imperial squad play, definitely Imp Squads II and the Quasar, which is a fantastic carrier to the exclusion of any other role.

Also, flotillas are now capped at two per fleet and don't prevent tabling, relay got nerfed, Rieekan only affects one target per round, and other erratas. If you haven't read up on those yet, you'll probably want to before playing a game.

18 hours ago, Admiral Sylva said:

Also what have i missed?!? Whats been hitting it off and what has been plummeting to earth? I see that the time of mass activations seems to have evolved, now seeing some lists with only 3 ships on, what’s going on!

So, just addressing the question of mass activations, the thinking shifted on these roughly when some clever person started rolling with the “Imperial 2-Ship” archetype. This list basically traded quantity for quality. By allowing each of their very few activations to be incredibly impactful, with a massive threat range, this list is able to keep pace with MSU swarms, sometimes deleting two ships in a turn. Timing is often critical in such lists, as they tend to use Governor Pryce to buy themselves the luxury of a last/first activation, which all but the toughest ships have trouble handling.

I don’t have an updated, modern list right now, but it was basically an ISD-II, loaded for bear, and a Quasar Fire Carrier (usually with the Squall title), with (usually) aces (Morna Kee, Colonel Jendon, Maarek Stele, Vader, Boba Fett, Bossk, Dengar, Major Rhymer, Zertik Strom, Ciena Ree... you name it)... basically the biggest, baddest fighter wing you could build out of 134 points, with occasional stop-gap guys like Gamma or Tempest thrown in to make maximum use of those points. The idea being that with Squall, you could advance an incredibly massive and frightening wing of multirole fighter bombers most of the way across the map pretty much whenever you wanted to, and the unlucky ship or squadron ball they pounced on was almost certainly going to die... if not on that activation, then certainly at the top of the next turn (if, of course, you timed Gov. Pryce correctly).

The real sea-change was that the activation game, while still important, became one of balancing quantity vs. quality. Cards like Pryce, Bail Organa, and to a lesser extent Strategic Adviser allowed low-quantity, high-quality activation fleets to compete.

The Rebel version of the Quality Activation fleet probably reached its pinnacle with the Raddus/Profundity/Corvette Russian doll fleets, designed to basically take a big Imperial ship from healthy to dead in one turn.

The SSD continued the trend; it’s (arguably) the most potent single activation one can make, and even has a built-in Strategic Adviser, but good luck fitting in more than 1-2 other ships with it.

It’s perhaps too early to tell exactly what the Onager’s best home will be, but I’m confident it has one (maybe several). It definitely can be built to fit Imperial themes of quality activations and threat projection, and it’s durable enough that it won’t just evaporate when it gets attacked. I think it could fit nicely into the 2-ship scheme.

All that said, MSU swarms aren’t dead, even for the Empire; I have a feeling that Romodi & lots of Arquitens Light Cruisers could form the backbone of a resurgent Imperial MSU (or more likely, Large + MSU, with a big ship to anchor the fleet). But enough speculation from me.

Ah well, that sounds like a healthier balance. I like fleets that resemble modern navy’s where you have a destroyer with additional smaller support or specialist ships.

I have managed to hunt down 2x Arquitens to order today in the UK (in English, not Spanish or German as a great many of them were) so I have played around and made up the following list using all my new ships which are on their way. It follows the large ship + msu fleet which I like.

Onager Star Destroyer

- General Romodi - Strategic Advisor - Gunnery Team - Orbital Bombardment Particle Cannons - Cataclysm - 151 points

Arquitens Light Cruiser

- Enhanced Armament - 64 points

Arquitens Light Cruiser

- Enhanced Armament - 64 points

Gozanti Cruisers

- Expanded Hangar Bay - 28 points

Squadrons

Darth Vader, Soontir Fel, Dengar, Ciena Ree, Tempest Squadron - 89 points

396 points Total

On 2/20/2020 at 2:57 PM, Admiral Sylva said:

Ah well, that sounds like a healthier balance. I like fleets that resemble modern navy’s where you have a destroyer with additional smaller support or specialist ships.

I have managed to hunt down 2x Arquitens to order today in the UK (in English, not Spanish or German as a great many of them were) so I have played around and made up the following list using all my new ships which are on their way. It follows the large ship + msu fleet which I like.

Onager Star Destroyer

- General Romodi - Strategic Advisor - Gunnery Team - Orbital Bombardment Particle Cannons - Cataclysm - 151 points

Arquitens Light Cruiser

- Enhanced Armament - 64 points

Arquitens Light Cruiser

- Enhanced Armament - 64 points

Gozanti Cruisers

- Expanded Hangar Bay - 28 points

Squadrons

Darth Vader, Soontir Fel, Dengar, Ciena Ree, Tempest Squadron - 89 points

396 points Total

I’d say that’s a very respectable start! The Arquitens were a good pick, too... I think those things are about to have a Romodi-fueled “moment.” And heysince you have all of the other pieces already: Try throwing Hondo Ohnaka on one of your ships. At the start of turn one, discard him to give your Cataclysm a Concentrate Fire token (and another token to whatever you like, I’d probably go squad token to the Gozanti), and with Cataclysm you can probably get a turn one shot at something. It’s demoralizing for an opponent to START combat with one empty shield zone!