1 hour ago, XR8rGREAT said:

I would hardly call that a buff to squadrons as the have to die to be of use to him lol

And if your stuff isn't dying (IE you getting value from Rieekan) then you're winning. Congratulations.

Rieekan blunts alpha strikes and first-last, which not only allows you more flexibility for initiative but allows you to straight up play differently. He wrecks your opponent's MoV by turning losses into trades. He guarantees blocking. He gives you the certainty that your pieces will be where you need them to be when your activation rolls around.

There's a reason he's been nerfed multiple times and is still a top-tier staple for carrier fleets.

I've been telling everyone I can, NOT to run squadrons. It's all part of my plan to completely evaporate the squadron meta - and then show up to some tournament of significance with B-Wing bombers and take them all by surprise. Claim the championship of the galaxy, and ensure that ship shaped like nunchucks makes it unto the game.

13 minutes ago, Crabbok said:

I've been telling everyone I can, NOT to run squadrons. It's all part of my plan to completely evaporate the squadron meta - and then show up to some tournament of significance with B-Wing bombers and take them all by surprise. Claim the championship of the galaxy, and ensure that ship shaped like nunchucks makes it unto the game.

You jest but I won a regional this way

10 hours ago, Piratical Moustache said:

Ugliness is a feature of the TIE series, normally the Rebels have better looking stuff.

Don't taint Star Wars by referencing anything from Soy-lo.

The Millennium Falcon should always be an "ugly" "piece of junk". That's part of its appeal.

The TIE Brute is just stupid, at least as a starfighter. I suppose it could be an effective ground-attack TIE, because it's turret rotates on the vertical axis, so it could shoot downward at surface targets while flying parallel to the ground. Whereas most TIEs have to strafe downward to attack targets and then pull up to avoid crashing. So if we had seen the TIE Brute fighting on Mimban, it might've made sense.

Regardless, it was simply created to sell a new toy... which no one wanted.

( Delete this)

7 minutes ago, Reavern said:

The TIE Brute is just stupid, at least as a starfighter. I suppose it could be an effective ground-attack TIE, because it's turret rotates on the vertical axis, so it could shoot downward at surface targets while flying parallel to the ground. Whereas most TIEs have to strafe downward to attack targets and then pull up to avoid crashing. So if we had seen the TIE Brute fighting on Mimban, it might've made sense.

Yes because the original TIE fighter design makes so much sense, there’s literally nothing you could improve on. The last thing you want is for your pilots to be distracted by anything to their left or right. And it really simplifies the targeting system when you have to line your ship up on your target. And missiles or torpedoes would just add too much weight. Just an absolutely brilliant tactical design.

7 minutes ago, bkcammack said:

Yes because the original TIE fighter design makes so much sense, there’s literally nothing you could improve on. The last thing you want is for your pilots to be distracted by anything to their left or right. And it really simplifies the targeting system when you have to line your ship up on your target. And missiles or torpedoes would just add too much weight. Just an absolutely brilliant tactical design.

And the X-wing's wings in space make sense how ? 🤨 (You can explain it if you want, but I already know what the wings and S-foils are for.)

Whereas the TIE Fighter does make some sense in terms of the Imperial Navy's fighter doctrine. TIE Fighters, and consequently, their pilots, were intended to be disposable assets. They were primarily used to bully civilians and overwhelm pirates. Any enemy that TIEs couldn't outrun or outmaneuver, they were supposed to overwhelm using swarm tactics. And TIE Fighters were highly effective at enforcing the Empire's control over the galaxy for nearly 20 years, until an organized Rebellion rose up.

TIEs weren't intended to go head-to-head with superior starfighters piloted by competent and brave pilots. The cockpit and "wing" design were endemic of the Imperial Navy's doctrine: "Eyes forward, don't look back, always obey orders, fly directly at your target, kill it, and if you die... who cares? We have millions more TIE Fighters and pilots to replace you." The TIE Fighter was a bad design on purpose -- at least according to SW lore . That lore makes sense for the bad guys, and also explains why good guys defeated the Empire.

Regardless of reasons, the TIE Fighter design ultimately comes down to the Rule of Cool. It's flying eyeball that shrieks and spits lasers! 😎

11 hours ago, Piratical Moustache said:

Ugliness is a feature of the TIE series, normally the Rebels have better looking stuff.

That would actually be the perfect squadron for my 2 Blue Die Imperial Generic Fighter plan! And movie canon at that!

11 hours ago, geek19 said:

Why is it on the left side? Why not the right? Followup: why not symmetry? Symmetry, Steinman, something must be done about symmetry!

http://fractalsponge.net/?p=4749

"Perfectly symmetrical as all things should be."

😉

lets not forget the fallacy of thinking only max = mass. 100 or 105+ is where I’d place the limit on mass. And that’s data driven. It follows the same winning trend for max squads.

also the win rate compared to taken percentage increases steadily and without exception through each cut for both 110 ish and 134.

On 5/20/2020 at 9:44 AM, flatpackhamster said:

The problem IMO is a shortage of squadron-focused admirals. Pretty much all the admirals offer help for fleets of ships.

I'd like to see future ship releases include admirals which enhance squads, particularly non-unique squads, in some way.

Rebels need a squadron admiral for sure, confusing why they don't already considering the impact of rebel starfighters in attaining victory

On 5/20/2020 at 1:06 PM, Piratical Moustache said:

@PodRacer

3 minutes ago, EbonHawk said:

Rebels need a squadron admiral for sure, confusing why they don't already considering the impact of rebel starfighters in attaining victory

I've said before, if and when the Rebels get a "Squadron Commander", it should be Wedge Antilles.

Wedge became an Officer in Wave 8. Hopefully he'll be promoted to Commander in the future. 😁

I don't think Ace spam got nerfed indirectly (or any other ways), but maybe I'm wrong.

As I see, people simply find boring playing Ace spam, since it haven't received any new stuff since wave 7. So my guess would be its still op just there are more interesting builds.

I agree with some of you in that a generic squadron commander would be nice, I always wanted to see generic squads as well, not just the stupid aces, because I think they are thematic, but too strong.

17 minutes ago, sasska said:

I don't think Ace spam got nerfed indirectly (or any other ways), but maybe I'm wrong.

As I see, people simply find boring playing Ace spam, since it haven't received any new stuff since wave 7. So my guess would be its still op just there are more interesting builds.

I agree with some of you in that a generic squadron commander would be nice, I always wanted to see generic squads as well, not just the stupid aces, because I think they are thematic, but too strong.

Make RHD an exhaust, and up the cost

On 5/19/2020 at 7:23 PM, BiggsIRL said:

Wow that is really low! Can we even say they are competitive right now?

I would like to point out that's 1 out of 5. I don't think that's low I think that's healthy. If you were to any much more above 25% (1 out of 4) it would be an absolute **** storm of fighter maxed fleets.

5 hours ago, Muelmuel said:

Make RHD an exhaust, and up the cost

Sloane with RHD’s and interceptors is annoying enough. I don’t think there’s any point value increase that would balance making it exhaust instead of discard.

18 hours ago, Reavern said:

I've said before, if and when the Rebels get a "Squadron Commander", it should be Wedge Antilles.

Wedge became an Officer in Wave 8. Hopefully he'll be promoted to Commander in the future. 😁

You could do so much with a dedicated Rebel squadron commander like Wedge.

Wedge; 38pts:

"Squadrons activated by ships gain one die of any color when attacking enemy squadrons. Once per activation (round?), while a squadron with 'Bomber' is attacking a ship, it may set one die to any face. "

Very powerful, costly Commander that promotes all squads and Rebels affinity towards bombers.

Wedge; 23pts:

"When an Ace Squadron is at distance 1 of at least two generic squadrons of the same type, that Ace squadron may not be attacked."

Cheap Commander that promotes use of generics and formation squadrons. Low cost because of points investment, to leverage ability you'd need two squads for every Ace, quickly cutting into points and also reducing the number of Aces you could actually take, but making the ones you do take last a little longer. Could also see some Z-95 and RHB shenanigans with Blount, lol.

Wedge; 28pts:

"When a ship activates a squadron, if that squadron was on an obstacle and not engaged, once per actiavtion, it may add one die to it's attack pool when attacking squadrons. "

Sneaky Rebels trying to ambush Imperial patrols from hiding spots.

Basically these ideas try to capitlaize not only on Wedge's history as an Ace Pilot, but his current card text/special ability - Escort, Bomber, & adding attack die.

I think 2020 being the stressful year it has been so far is causing Armada players to adjust thier play into more relaxed forms.

As for squad tools themselves, I think we're in the middle of a transitioning period where FFG is trying to open up more options for generic squads.

One of aspects of rebel squadrons is how Doddona is often a pick due side benifits of being the cheapest (allowing you to buy more squads) and bombers more likely to to trigger his interaction. If rebels do not get a more squadron focused commander then Doddona will more likely be the focus once more generic squads strats come online.

Sato is another similar but different strat I term as Combined Arms. A strat where squads and carrier gunship provide synergies for eachother. Combined arms as it is is in a odd place due to the tech being better for splashing in other lists then being a focal point (Why imps are probably better at it and why rebels suffer). Lots things to discuss here probably needs its own theory post or blog.

I expect that squadrons will have a resurgence when Clone Wars Armada is released because I expect the Venator will have a high Squadron value and droid squadrons will be incredibly cheap.

Although I suppose that depends on how FFG designs CW ships and squadrons , and if they accurately reflect their canon depictions.

The Venator should be able to carry 400+ starfighters compared to an ISD's 72. But I doubt the Venator will be given a Squadron value of 20 -- especially considering that the SSD only has a Squadron value of 5. Perhaps there will be a "Carrier" version of the Venator with 6 or more squadrons, but less firepower than the "Destroyer" version.

TIE Fighters cost 8 points and Z-95's cost 7 points, so how cheap can Vulture droid fighters be? And will they have less than 3 attack dice?

Rather than making droid squadrons insanely cheap, I think Vulture squadrons will be comparable to TIEs and Z-95s, and we'll just have to imagine that there are two or three times as many droid fighters in each squadron, to explain how they match up to existing Swarm squadrons.

It would be cool if FFG made a new plastic squadron tree with more than 3 mounting slots and extra Vulture droid minis, to reflect that droid fighter squadrons were comprised of more craft than normal squads.

3 minutes ago, Reavern said:

TIE Fighters cost 8 points and Z-95's cost 7 points, so how cheap can Vulture droid fighters be? And will they have less than 3 attack dice?

They may consider going the route of Legion where droid units have a negative keyword to allow for lower points. Consider how "AI: move" or "AI: attack" would work for droid fighters. They may even create a keyword similar to coordinate from Legion. Imagine if a squadron activated by a ship could (after it's own activation) activate an unactivated friendly "droid" squadron at range one of itself as if it were activated by a ship?

The nice thing about creating new factions is that design space is pretty open.

9 minutes ago, Reavern said:

It would be cool if FFG made a new plastic squadron tree with more than 3 mounting slots and extra Vulture droid minis, to reflect that droid fighter squadrons were comprised of more craft than normal squads.

I agree with this 110% but somehow I doubt it.

30 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

They may consider going the route of Legion where droid units have a negative keyword to allow for lower points. Consider how "AI: move" or "AI: attack" would work for droid fighters. They may even create a keyword similar to coordinate from Legion. Imagine if a squadron activated by a ship could (after it's own activation) activate an unactivated friendly "droid" squadron at range one of itself as if it were activated by a ship?

I had a similar idea regarding CIS ships: The CIS ship would either have a default order, like "AI: Move" or "AI: Attack" -- or the player would have to set the AI Command for each ship during Deployment -- and then CIS ships could only have Command Dials equal to their Command value, which would allow them to issue alternate orders during battle. So if a Munificent had 2 Commands and used both for Squadron Commands by Round 3, that ship would be stuck with its AI Commands for the remainder of the match.

I agree that it would make sense for Droid squadrons to have negative Keywords that would hinder them; however, squadrons already get locked down by engagement and have to fight their way out to move again (unless there's an Intel squadron nearby or they're activated by a ship with a special Upgrade card), so I don't think AI: Move or AI: Attack would be an effective hindrance to Droid squadrons in Armada. But I think FFG will implement something similar.

2 minutes ago, Reavern said:

I had a similar idea regarding CIS ships: The CIS ship would either have a default order, like "AI: Move" or "AI: Attack" -- or the player would have to set the AI Command for each ship during Deployment -- and then CIS ships could only have Command Dials equal to their Command value, which would allow them to issue alternate orders during battle. So if a Munificent had 2 Commands and used both for Squadron Commands by Round 3, that ship would be stuck with its AI Commands for the remainder of the match.

I agree that it would make sense for Droid squadrons to have negative Keywords that would hinder them; however, squadrons already get locked down by engagement and have to fight their way out to move again (unless there's an Intel squadron nearby or they're activated by a ship with a special Upgrade card), so I don't think AI: Move or AI: Attack would be an effective hindrance to Droid squadrons in Armada. But I think FFG will implement something similar.

That's a neat idea for ships.

As for squads that is true, cluttering CIS with keywords with the current design state could cause a lot of issues. They could do like they did with Legion and add effects for "droid" units. For instance droids don't suffer the effects of suppression in Legion, they only have to worry about panic. Similarly maybe droids cannot be engaged when activated during the ship phase? Likely still cumbersome. lol

1 hour ago, Darth Sanguis said:

That's a neat idea for ships.

As for squads that is true, cluttering CIS with keywords with the current design state could cause a lot of issues. They could do like they did with Legion and add effects for "droid" units. For instance droids don't suffer the effects of suppression in Legion, they only have to worry about panic. Similarly maybe droids cannot be engaged when activated during the ship phase? Likely still cumbersome. lol

Dumb idea, but what if they give CIS droid squads high hull, not because of beef, but because of the sheer amount of ships in a squad?

Edit: That way, you can still have a squadron value of 3, but still be swarmy being difficult to kill.

19 minutes ago, ianediger said:

Dumb idea, but what if they give CIS droid squads high hull, not because of beef, but because of the sheer amount of ships in a squad?

Edit: That way, you can still have a squadron value of 3, but still be swarmy being difficult to kill.

That's not a bad idea, because one of the problems I realized with the CIS having an insane amount of squadrons is that they can be exploited for Deployment advantage. Meaning that if the CIS can fit 20 squadrons in 134 points, the CIS player could stall deployment of their ships and gain a distinct advantage.

Whereas if Droid squadrons had 8-10 hull, 3 Blue attack dice, the Swarm keyword, and cost 15-20 points, to represent 3 times as many craft per squadron as a TIE Fighter or Z-95 squadron, that would balance them out because the CIS player could only fit a maximum of 8 Vulture Droid squadrons into 134 points, which would be about par for a squadron-heavy build.

But if that were the case, FFG should really create a larger plastic squadron tree that holds at least 6 Droid Fighters, to visually represent how Droid squadrons differ from normal squadrons.