1 hour ago, Church14 said:

Stares in OrdPods, Wide Area Barrage, Annihilator, Unity, Kallus. Looks at other flak buffs.

Stares at his default fleet with zero squadrons and his second default fleet that still runs zero squadrons, both of which do fine against heavy squad builds.

No. I can’t say I agree.

I played an 800pt game where I ran an Executor 2 with Heavy Fire Zone, Annihilator and Linked Turbolaser towers, giving me 2 rerollable red flak dice. My opponent had 200pts of squads and they barely got the shields down on my SSD before they were wiped out.

I agree that there's plenty of mileage in low/zero squad fleets.

Yeah it can be hit-or-miss with squad heavy and squad light builds. You really don't see many moderate squad builds. It's typically max points, or no points/minimum investment (like Tycho/Shara or Valen/Ciena as an annoying speed bump). And there's no incentive to do a moderate build. If you have, say, 65ish points of squads, they're going to get stomped by max point builds, and aren't necessarily going to be super effective against a no-squad build. If you go with non-rogues, you're looking at 4-8 squadrons which would require at least one ship to push them (and more likely a ship plus a flotilla). If you go with Rogues, it's 3-4. That's not going to be able to chew through a Tycho/Shara or Valen/Ciena build quickly enough to also do significant damage to ships, and it'll get hammered by a build that relies on its squadrons to deal max damage.

I think some of the biggest issues around Armada is the lag between overpowered list/rules combinations and the correction. How many years did we suffer through Engine Techs Demo hitting from out of Long Range? Or fleets with flotillas in the double-digits? Or Relay Yavaris? Or BTAvenger? I think shifting to an app fleet builder could help with those issues because it allows them to make faster changes. Removing points costs from printed cards makes it so much easier to tweak (and if players are using an app that has updated rules for upgrades, you don't have to worry as much about people getting left behind).

I suppose my one thing I would like to see fixed is Intel. I get what they were going for, but the thought that one little Jumpmaster flying into the middle of an X-Wing swarm somehow allowing a cluster of TIE Bombers to just fly by on a bombing run? It makes fighter screens useless (unless you use Advanced Transponders with a ship that a) has an offensive upgrade slot and b) doesn't need it for Boosted Comms/Expanded Hangar Bay/Reserve Hangar Deck).

And if they could speed up squadrons somehow, that would be nice. Squads on Squads is the slowest part of the game.

And the last speculation video... All real news from hear on out.

Here are my first impressions...

My thoughts on today's live Stream and Articles.

What could the pass and activation changes be? That's been a sore spot too in the game, but one that I haven't invested time into looking for alternate solutions.

A thought occurred to me while trying to decipher the wording on the new republic ace. Her ability specifically only effects friendly generic squadrons, which I thought was a good way to keep an aura ability in check. I then thought, what if they retroactively applied such a rule to all ace abilities? That way, they wouldn't have to change reprint old aces or drastically change mechanics. It could go something like this;

Ace abilities that specify "friendly squadrons" only effect non-unique squadrons

Ace abilities that specify "enemy squadrons" only effect unique squadrons

It even makes a some sense thematically. Aces are lone wolves, more interesting in seeking high value targets or completing special missions than cooperating closely with allies. This way, rather than artificially limiting the number of aces allowed in a list, players are encouraged to take generics in order to make use of your own defensive ace abilities. Furthermore taking too many becomes a risk, as offensive aces without targets are a waste of points. It even makes the game a little faster, since you don't have to juggle managing as many simultaneous bubbles. As an added bonus on the design side, you no longer have to worry about how the many combinations of aces could potentially interact with each other, making balance a lot easier.

Thoughts on this? I'm worried if they simply put a hard cap on the number of aces allowed, we'll just be stuck seeing the same aces over and over again with in each faction. (Even more than we do already)

Probably my list video for this Thread,

I have seen a lot of complaints and worry about the cost of the Armada Starters. Let me try and break it down...

1 hour ago, Thrindal said:

Probably my list video for this Thread,

I have seen a lot of complaints and worry about the cost of the Armada Starters. Let me try and break it down...

A big thing you hit on there is that we are likely to see a increase in the cost of expansion packs. We have already been shown one on the squadron packs. The new starters for vets the buy in for the new factions just comes with stuff they do not need. That feels bad since we all want to save every penny we can. If we see an increase in expansion prices though there will not be much saved going the expansions only route if anything. And from that vantage point it might explain the claims of the starter ships not getting individual releases. One also might look at the starter only for these ships as a sort of soft attempt at restricting list building.

1 hour ago, Frimmel said:

A big thing you hit on there is that we are likely to see a increase in the cost of expansion packs. We have already been shown one on the squadron packs. The new starters for vets the buy in for the new factions just comes with stuff they do not need. That feels bad since we all want to save every penny we can. If we see an increase in expansion prices though there will not be much saved going the expansions only route if anything. And from that vantage point it might explain the claims of the starter ships not getting individual releases. One also might look at the starter only for these ships as a sort of soft attempt at restricting list building.

Personally, I plan on getting 2 of each starter. That will give me more smalls than I think I will ever use after we get a couple expansions in. As for the Mediums the Munificent is the only one I think I might ever want a third of but that depends on the point cost in game and I will be more than happy with 2 for a while.

I also want multiples of the Acclamator and Munificent, but I don't plan on buying more than one Starter per faction. In addition to being expensive, it's wasteful because of all of the redundant accessories that I won't need. Instead, I'll wait for the single ship expansions to be released, whenever that happens, which will presumably be after the Wave 2* (?) expansions are released in Q1 2021.

I don't feel the need for 400-point builds for the Republic and Separatists on Day 1 because the unfortunate reality of our current situation is that we won't be able to play Clone Wars Armada at public events or competitions this Winter because of the predicted 2nd wave of the pandemic, which will presumably cause another period of shutdowns and stay-at-home orders. If and when that happens (in rational countries with responsible leaders and sensible citizens), the only people who we'll be able to play Clone Wars Armada with will be members of our own households.

Or players on Vassal or Tabletop Simulator, because those games will probably be updated for Clone Wars Armada soon after the Starters and expansions are released in December. I think that those digital board games will be our only options to safely play Armada with other people this Winter. Those games aren't tied to our real, physical collections of Armada ships and squadrons, so we'll be able to build digital fleets of multiple Acclamators and Munificents and battle opponents online. It's not how any of us want to play Clone Wars Armada, but I think it will be our only safe option for a time in 2021.

When the pandemic is finally over, then we can buy all the Clone Wars expansions we need/want to play Armada in public again.

That's when I plan to greatly expand my Clone Wars collection. I'd love it if it will be possible to fit 4 Venators and a Commander into a 400-point build and go up against 8 Munificents. But it would be ridiculous to buy 8 Separatist Fleet Starters to make that happen. I'll wait for the Munificent ship expansion instead.

4 hours ago, Revan Reborn said:

That's when I plan to greatly expand my Clone Wars collection. I'd love it if it will be possible to fit 4 Venators and a Commander into a 400-point build and go up against 8 Munificents. But it would be ridiculous to buy 8 Separatist Fleet Starters to make that happen. I'll wait for the Munificent ship expansion instead.

I highly doubt we will be able to fit 8 Munificents and a commander in a list. 5 would be the max I would expect with a commander.

Regardless I think all expansion prices are going up. We have already seen it with the last expansion for Rebels and Empire and the Squad pack is $5 more expensive. I am guessing everything will be seeing a 20-25% increase. Seeing this is the first increase in the life of the game after 5 years I can't say I am surprised. That being the case I think Smalls will be $25 and Mediums will be $50 on average. That makes the core set a fine value although as a veteran player you will get things you don't need.

For new players I think it is a super value.

I see what your saying about the pandemic, I have played Vassel in the past and I might again but only if I just can't stand it any longer, not being able to play. I personally can't stand TTS.

Once we do get back in stores I expect our numbers to double with 2 more factions. I have already talked to folks that would be new to Armada and are only interested because of Clone Wars.

30 minutes ago, Thrindal said:

I highly doubt we will be able to fit 8 Munificents and a commander in a list. 5 would be the max I would expect with a commander.

Yes, I doubt 8 Munificents and a Commander will fit in a 400-point build, but I still want to play out that battle because it would be thematic for the Clone Wars.

My plan is to get 1 Separatist Fleet Starter and then wait for the Munificent ship expansion, and get 3 of those, so I'll have 4 Munificents. I'll let my friends borrow my Munificents to add to their fleets so they should have around 8. It will probably end up being an 800-point Sector Fleet battle. I think that 4 well-equipped Venators, maxed out Squadrons, and perhaps a couple of Consulars will add up to 800 points. That would be a thematic Clone Wars battle!