5 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

So you have been playing Armada quite happily for five years but take issue with the idea the game is well balanced?

I know this may come as a shock to these boards, but it is possible to enjoy something without deluding one's self into thinking it has no flaws.

1 hour ago, ExplosiveTooka said:

"Mon mothma is probably the second best commander against the onager"

Are we playing the same game? Mon mothma does absolutely nothing against extreme range attacks. against shorter range attacks Cracken reduces damage more than mon mothma.

Reducing 4 dice to 3, or large pools by one, significantly increases the survivability of small ships. I think you might want to do less theory crafting and more testing.

Are you playing the same game? Does the Onager always fire at Rebel ships at extreme range?

NO. 🙄

The Onager's first Ignition attack might be at extreme range of the defender, so MM's ability wouldn't help. But any player with any sense will be trying to maneuver their ships closer to the Onager to get past its narrow Special Arc and attack its weaker side and rear hull zones. MM helps Rebel ships to survive their charge toward the Onager; and after they're into its flanks, MM helps them reduce damage from the Onager's side and rear arcs until they can overwhelm and kill the Onager.

Also, the Onager isn't the only Imperial ship -- unless it's a Triple Onager fleet (which I've never seen). Other Imperial ships will try to stop the Rebels from rushing the Onager; MM will help the Rebel ships reduce some of the damage from other Imp ships, allowing them to survive longer and take out the Onager.

Therefore, Mon Mothma is a good defensive/evasive Rebel Commander to counter the Onager.

51 minutes ago, Revan Reborn said:

Are you playing the same game? Does the Onager always fire at Rebel ships at extreme range?

NO. 🙄

The Onager's first Ignition attack might be at extreme range of the defender, so MM's ability wouldn't help. But any player with any sense will be trying to maneuver their ships closer to the Onager to get past its narrow Special Arc and attack its weaker side and rear hull zones. MM helps Rebel ships to survive their charge toward the Onager; and after they're into its flanks, MM helps them reduce damage from the Onager's side and rear arcs until they can overwhelm and kill the Onager.

Also, the Onager isn't the only Imperial ship -- unless it's a Triple Onager fleet (which I've never seen). Other Imperial ships will try to stop the Rebels from rushing the Onager; MM will help the Rebel ships reduce some of the damage from other Imp ships, allowing them to survive longer and take out the Onager.

Therefore, Mon Mothma is a good defensive/evasive Rebel Commander to counter the Onager.

I'm sorry, but you're just completely wrong about this. Mon Mothma's big advantage is forcing rerolls on special crits at short range and incoming squad damage. At long, medium, and close, Cracken averages out to more damage reduction, and can't be countered by accuracy generating tech, which a lot of onager builds rely on.

Mon mothma does not help rebel ships survive "the charge" better than cracken. By the time you're getting into short or medium range, you should already be out of arc for ignition attacks.

Cracken does significantly better at damage mitigation than Mon Mothma in this case. I'm sorry but that's just the way their cards work. If you want to criticize Cracken for his actual weaknesses go ahead, but you're flat out wrong on Mon Mothma being better against onagers.

Edit: spelling it out for people

Mon Mothma's effect only works at close/medium range:

at close range, Mon Mothma is rerolling a die. Assuming it is a black die with a hit/crit, that is a damage reduction of one damage, assuming that your accuracy isn't locked down. Cracken is removing a single die. a red die with a single reroll(vader) averages 1.03 damage. This ability is independent of your evade. If the onager had HIEs, APTs or ACMs, this math might favor Mon Mothma

at medium range, Mon mothma is cancelling a die. Assuming it is a black hit/crit, this removes two damage, assuming your accuracy hasn't been locked down. Cracken cancels 1.03 damage from his effect, and rerolls the hit crit, averaging 1 damage.

however, with an accuracy, the math changes from

MM -1 damage, Cr -1.03
or
MM -2 damage, Cr -2.03

to

MM -0 Cr -1.03
MM -0 Cr -1.03

This also ignores that evades can be overheated, especially with salvo, and that Cracken is straight up better than Mon Mothma outside of short/medium. Get onto vassal and look at how large the short/medium area is of the ignition arc why don't you?

How does Romodi interact with Cracken (if at all) and does that affect your view?

11 minutes ago, Aahz 1 said:

How does Romodi interact with Cracken (if at all) and does that affect your view?

Romodi means that you have to be unobstructed by normal means for cracken's ability to work. Which means you have to be super careful at deployment and on the approach, and you have to watch for your opponent intentionally obstructing their own vessels with other ships they have

6 hours ago, ExplosiveTooka said:

I'm sorry, but you're just completely wrong about this. Mon Mothma's big advantage is forcing rerolls on special crits at short range and incoming squad damage. At long, medium, and close, Cracken averages out to more damage reduction, and can't be countered by accuracy generating tech, which a lot of onager builds rely on.

Mon mothma does not help rebel ships survive "the charge" better than cracken. By the time you're getting into short or medium range, you should already be out of arc for ignition attacks.

Cracken does significantly better at damage mitigation than Mon Mothma in this case. I'm sorry but that's just the way their cards work. If you want to criticize Cracken for his actual weaknesses go ahead, but you're flat out wrong on Mon Mothma being better against onagers.

Edit: spelling it out for people

Mon Mothma's effect only works at close/medium range:

at close range, Mon Mothma is rerolling a die. Assuming it is a black die with a hit/crit, that is a damage reduction of one damage, assuming that your accuracy isn't locked down. Cracken is removing a single die. a red die with a single reroll(vader) averages 1.03 damage. This ability is independent of your evade. If the onager had HIEs, APTs or ACMs, this math might favor Mon Mothma

at medium range, Mon mothma is cancelling a die. Assuming it is a black hit/crit, this removes two damage, assuming your accuracy hasn't been locked down. Cracken cancels 1.03 damage from his effect, and rerolls the hit crit, averaging 1 damage.

however, with an accuracy, the math changes from

MM -1 damage, Cr -1.03
or
MM -2 damage, Cr -2.03

to

MM -0 Cr -1.03
MM -0 Cr -1.03

This also ignores that evades can be overheated, especially with salvo, and that Cracken is straight up better than Mon Mothma outside of short/medium. Get onto vassal and look at how large the short/medium area is of the ignition arc why don't you?

Clearly you're just trying to go against the grain by claiming that Cracken isn't the worst Rebel Commander.

"Good luck" convincing anyone. 😆

Cracken's ability reduces the attacker's dice pool by 1 die before they roll, whereas Mon Mothma uses Evades at closer range than normal to cancel 1 die or reroll 1 die of the defender's choosing. With Cracken, you never know what that extra die would've been: It could've been a Blank; it could've been a Double Hit; it could've been a Hit-Crit. You just don't know! And not to go all Chaos Theory on you, but you'll also never know how not having that extra die in the hand effected the results of all the other dice.

You can use whatever statistics you want to support your case for Cracken, but IMO Mon Mothma is better because the defender gets to choose the attack die to cancel or reroll, and will obviously choose the most damaging die. Not only does the defender know how helpful Mon Mothma was, but the attacker knows it too, which can be very frustrating. Don't under-estimate MM's "screw you" ability.

The attacker knowing that Mon Mothma can effectively neutralize their best die can really mess with their head and make them second guess themselves, especially when they're using an upgrade card like TRC (or the Intensify Firepower! fleet command). The attacker can use TRC and an Evade to guarantee a Double Hit or Crit, but MM can cancel it or force the reroll. MM takes away that guaranteed results, which means the attacker spent an Evade for nothing, and wasted 7 points on TRC. Imagine if the attacker has multiple ships equipped with TRC! MM has the potential to neutralize them all. Cracken doesn't.

As others have pointed out, Cracken's ability requires ships to be at Speed 3+. He doesn't "force" players to move at Speed 3 or 4 all the time, but changing speeds requires a Nav command or token, which means using up Command. MM allows players to move ships at whatever speed they want.

Also, Tractor Beams, Konstantine, and Slicer Tools can interfere with Cracken's ability.

Experienced Rebel players are aware of all of these reasons, which is why Cracken is widely regarded as the bottom-of-the-barrel.

2 hours ago, Revan Reborn said:

Clearly you're just trying to go against the grain by claiming that Cracken isn't the worst Rebel Commander.

"Good luck" convincing anyone. 😆

Cracken's ability reduces the attacker's dice pool by 1 die before they roll, whereas Mon Mothma uses Evades at closer range than normal to cancel 1 die or reroll 1 die of the defender's choosing. With Cracken, you never know what that extra die would've been: It could've been a Blank; it could've been a Double Hit; it could've been a Hit-Crit. You just don't know! And not to go all Chaos Theory on you, but you'll also never know how not having that extra die in the hand effected the results of all the other dice.

You can use whatever statistics you want to support your case for Cracken, but IMO Mon Mothma is better because the defender gets to choose the attack die to cancel or reroll, and will obviously choose the most damaging die. Not only does the defender know how helpful Mon Mothma was, but the attacker knows it too, which can be very frustrating. Don't under-estimate MM's "screw you" ability.

The attacker knowing that Mon Mothma can effectively neutralize their best die can really mess with their head and make them second guess themselves, especially when they're using an upgrade card like TRC (or the Intensify Firepower! fleet command). The attacker can use TRC and an Evade to guarantee a Double Hit or Crit, but MM can cancel it or force the reroll. MM takes away that guaranteed results, which means the attacker spent an Evade for nothing, and wasted 7 points on TRC. Imagine if the attacker has multiple ships equipped with TRC! MM has the potential to neutralize them all. Cracken doesn't.

As others have pointed out, Cracken's ability requires ships to be at Speed 3+. He doesn't "force" players to move at Speed 3 or 4 all the time, but changing speeds requires a Nav command or token, which means using up Command. MM allows players to move ships at whatever speed they want.

Also, Tractor Beams, Konstantine, and Slicer Tools can interfere with Cracken's ability.

Experienced Rebel players are aware of all of these reasons, which is why Cracken is widely regarded as the bottom-of-the-barrel.

I'm pretty sure "worst commander" was a tie between old leia and madine.

I accounted for the choice of die in my math. I used the black hit/crit as an example for a reason. A die being removed has no effect on the rolls of other dice. This is a basic thing you learn in statistics.

If you're basing your strategy around your opponent making mistakes like second guessing themselves, you've already lost. You always should assume your opponent is smarter than you if you want to play the game competitively.

On the issue of TRCs, TRC ships generally want to be firing at long range, where cracken is as effective as mon mothma AND cracken makes one die arcs (side of CR90, front and rear of kitten) unable to even fire at you to begin with. This hard counters ackbar TRC90s. Also, because of how TRC's and small dice pools function, with Cracken you increase the chance of your opponent having to change a single hit to a double, as opposed to a blank.

This may come as a shock, but small ships generally are navigating, or at least have access to a navigation token.

Tractors and the like first off are super rare, and second off are easy to plan around. If you're worried about tractors you may go up to speed four or bank a navigate token. Slicers are also easy to mitigate with a little bit of planning.

I don't like the implication that I'm not an experienced rebel player. I don't mean to be rude, but I'm pretty sure I have significantly more experience running rebel MSU, Cracken MSU, and MSU in general than you do. No where have I claimed that Cracken is one of the good rebel commanders. But to suggest Mon Mothma as being all around superior is laughable, especially when dealing with Onagers.

11 hours ago, EBerling said:

I know this may come as a shock to these boards, but it is possible to enjoy something without deluding one's self into thinking it has no flaws.

Of course the game has flaws. But the original poster came in hot with some pretty strong opinions that don’t happen to gel with the conventional wisdom. That sort of thing will cause some pushback.

I won’t speak for everyone, but the tone I tried to strike here was NOT “Cataclysm sucks, you suck, get gud, noob.” It was that he needed to take a breath, ask some questions, be humble, get some guidance, change his tactics, try some new tools.

This game has seen some pretty busted $&@!. Cataclysm isn’t remotely close to broken.

As to the Cracken argument: I think this probably isn’t worth discussing (for me) any longer. The Cracken defenders have made fine points, and I’m now convinced that he may be slightly better than Konstantine. But my lived experience with him is that until he gets a little help, he’s just not worth fielding. A few points shaved off, or a slightly broader ability, maybe I’ll give him a look. He’s like, close to usable! But close to usable is still... unusable. And again, I’m a guy who gives EVERY Commander a fair shake. ****, I even think Madine is way better than people give him credit for!

The Onager is a good ship. Cheap for what it does (break a core rule of the game - the range limitation). Yet is is incredibly squishy for a large base, not much tougher than a VSD. And once outmaneuvered, it takes damage at an alarming rate with little ability to fight back (Testbed in particular, the SD version is far more dangerous - but more rarely played).

Cataclysm is a good title, if a one-trick pony (well, you can move the token after round 1, but this doesn't happen all that often). It's also a card that has the most shock value the first time a player meets it, then the fear rapidly fades. Still powerful, but it doesn't break the game.

Vader Trionagers I consider not very good for the game. Not because it cannot be defeated, but because against a player below the top tier, it can feel very much like a game-breaker (or at least, fun-breaker). In X-wing, a list of 3-Upsilons was quickly nerfed (before it really won much) bc it was unfun and thus not good for the game.

Slandering Cracken is stupid. He's not a bad commander. He's actually relatively good. But he's not top tier, which means he isn't seeing much play. Being OK and not seeing much play (this does apply to quite a few commanders, no?) doesn't equate crappy.

Slandering Konstantine is worse. King K is just deeply misunderstood. His time will come.

5 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

I even think Madine is way better than people give him credit for!

Agreed.

Stay in the fight!

5 hours ago, Green Knight said:

The Onager is a good ship. Cheap for what it does (break a core rule of the game - the range limitation). Yet is is incredibly squishy for a large base, not much tougher than a VSD. And once outmaneuvered, it takes damage at an alarming rate with little ability to fight back (Testbed in particular, the SD version is far more dangerous - but more rarely played).

Cataclysm is a good title, if a one-trick pony (well, you can move the token after round 1, but this doesn't happen all that often). It's also a card that has the most shock value the first time a player meets it, then the fear rapidly fades. Still powerful, but it doesn't break the game.

Vader Trionagers I consider not very good for the game. Not because it cannot be defeated, but because against a player below the top tier, it can feel very much like a game-breaker (or at least, fun-breaker). In X-wing, a list of 3-Upsilons was quickly nerfed (before it really won much) bc it was unfun and thus not good for the game.

Slandering Cracken is stupid. He's not a bad commander. He's actually relatively good. But he's not top tier, which means he isn't seeing much play. Being OK and not seeing much play (this does apply to quite a few commanders, no?) doesn't equate crappy.

Slandering Konstantine is worse. King K is just deeply misunderstood. His time will come.

I’m agreeing with most of this, but slandering Cracken is not stupid. I will slander whatever useless piece of cardboard I choose, TYVM.

1 hour ago, Bravo Null said:

Agreed.

Stay in the fight!

Effect is good, cost is not.

9 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

Of course the game has flaws. But the original poster came in hot...

Spare me, you literally came in hot at me accusing me of being a hypocrite if I've played the game for years while also holding the view that the game has flaw, implying that if anyone thinks the game isn't perfect they should GTFO out of the community.

Which is exactly the kind of "toxic positivity" that runs rampant on these boards and keeps me from visiting/participating, which was the point I was originally noting in my post.

18 minutes ago, EBerling said:

Spare me, you literally came in hot at me accusing me of being a hypocrite if I've played the game for years while also holding the view that the game has flaw, implying that if anyone thinks the game isn't perfect they should GTFO out of the community.

Which is exactly the kind of "toxic positivity" that runs rampant on these boards and keeps me from visiting/participating, which was the point I was originally noting in my post.

No, he didn't. Someone else replied to you, that was his first quote to you in the thread. Chill, man.

22 hours ago, EBerling said:

This is my hot take on the Armada FFG Boards:


Topic 1: Game Element X is too good, it seems problematic for the balance of the game.
-- 95% of responding community members: Git gud, this game is wonderfully balanced, there are all sorts of counters you can fly! Element X is not invicible, heck it's honestly kinda bad if you know how to play.

-meanwhile elsewhere in another thread-

Topic 2: Game Element X seems really bad... I don't think it's viable.
--95% of responding community members: Git gud, this game is wonderfully balanced, there are all sorts of X lists you can fly! Element X isn't impossible to win with, heck it's one of the best things in the game if you know how to play.



Whenever anyone says anything remotely critical of an aspect of the game (whatever the reason), the community piles on with dismissals and reassurances about how Armada is just amazing and beyond reproach. Which is why I've been playing this game for nearly five hears and have only popped into these boards a handful of times.

I’ve noticed several people on the boards that can’t accept any criticism of armada or ffg and insult and gang up on anyone that criticizes ffg or asmodee or if anyone calls out one of them for defending ffg. They often deliver rude one liners or memes and really gang up on people.

This is really super simplistic and definitely not what happened with this thread imo.

1 hour ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

This is really super simplistic and definitely not what happened with this thread imo.

Nice one liner.

2 hours ago, ninclouse2000 said:

They often deliver rude one liners or memes

To be fair, I'm out of warnings, so no more memes. I don't feel like setting up an alt account.

15 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

To be fair, I'm out of warnings, so no more memes. I don't feel like setting up an alt account.

How many warnings have you had? First ban is only 1 day.

8 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

How many warnings have you had? First ban is only 1 day.

6 points total. I've been banned twice now I believe? The last one lasted 3 days. The last one was for the "star wars fans are the worst" meme. They told me, "Self moderate or the consequences will be more severe". So I've been on my bestest.

13 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

6 points total. I've been banned twice now I believe? The last one lasted 3 days. The last one was for the "star wars fans are the worst" meme. They told me, "Self moderate or the consequences will be more severe". So I've been on my bestest.

3 points here, the next ban is 3 weeks. I assume the one after is 3 months.

4 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

3 points here, the next ban is 3 weeks. I assume the one after is 3 months.

That's not so bad. If you plan the next ban accordingly you could be back just as the new content hits. lol

To be honest I think it's a little unfair too. Most of those points were applied for posting overt sexual imagery or inappropriate language during rants relating to how I feel about FFG's polices and treatment of the Armada community as a whole over the last 3 years. Seems a little rude of them to imply I was banned for being rude to other members when I was clearly targeting FFG.

oh well, point is, no more "Star Wars fans are the worst" memes.

13 hours ago, ExplosiveTooka said:

I'm pretty sure "worst commander" was a tie between old leia and madine.

I accounted for the choice of die in my math. I used the black hit/crit as an example for a reason. A die being removed has no effect on the rolls of other dice. This is a basic thing you learn in statistics.

If you're basing your strategy around your opponent making mistakes like second guessing themselves, you've already lost. You always should assume your opponent is smarter than you if you want to play the game competitively.

On the issue of TRCs, TRC ships generally want to be firing at long range, where cracken is as effective as mon mothma AND cracken makes one die arcs (side of CR90, front and rear of kitten) unable to even fire at you to begin with. This hard counters ackbar TRC90s. Also, because of how TRC's and small dice pools function, with Cracken you increase the chance of your opponent having to change a single hit to a double, as opposed to a blank.

This may come as a shock, but small ships generally are navigating, or at least have access to a navigation token.

Tractors and the like first off are super rare, and second off are easy to plan around. If you're worried about tractors you may go up to speed four or bank a navigate token. Slicers are also easy to mitigate with a little bit of planning.

I don't like the implication that I'm not an experienced rebel player. I don't mean to be rude, but I'm pretty sure I have significantly more experience running rebel MSU, Cracken MSU, and MSU in general than you do. No where have I claimed that Cracken is one of the good rebel commanders. But to suggest Mon Mothma as being all around superior is laughable, especially when dealing with Onagers.

You're obviously a math guy, so you base your strategy on statistics. Remind me, how did the Moneyball strategy work out of the Oakland Athletics?

Have you ever won any tournaments with Cracken and your statistics?

Don't bother answering -- I don't care.

Your reliance on Cracken seems to be dependent on facing an opponent with another MSU fleet. Perhaps that's the local META in your area, but that's not universal, and MSU builds rarely make it to the finals because they don't achieve high enough MoV.

If Cracken goes up against ships with high attack pools, the loss of a single die is insignificant. And since Cracken's ability only benefits small and medium ships, they lack the hull points to deal with high damage. You can try keep your ships at long range to minimize the size of incoming attack pools, but an experienced player will figure out how to get close, and all it could take is one medium range attack from an ISD2 or VSD2 or OSD's front/special arc to overwhelm Cracken's ability and one-shot a Rebel small ship -- or damage the Rebel ship enough that it's forced to flee.

It's precisely that situation that MM is superior to Cracken because she can cancel a Double Hit or Crit at medium range, and force a reroll on Hit-Crit at close range.

MSU fleets generally do well against Onagers regardless of what Commander is chosen. But once those small ships are past the Onager's special arc, MM is much tougher to deal with because the Rebel ships are free to slow down and try to stay a medium range while remaining in the Onager's rear or side arcs. Whereas Cracken's small ships have to stay at Speed 3-4 to receive his benefit, so they can't hover behind the Onager and grind it down.

Finally, Cracken does nothing against squadrons. Bomber squadrons are arguably a "hard counter" to Cracken; Maarek Stele could be renamed "Cracken's Bane"; TIE Bombers are fast enough to keep up with ships travelling at Speed 4 (although Rebel bombers would have a harder time); and even normal squadrons can grind down Rebel small and medium ships with their single Battery die. Whereas MM offers far greater protection against enemy squadrons.

I think Crack can be effective in very specific circumstances, whereas MM provides better protection in a variety of circumstances, and doesn't restrict the Rebel player's play style.

1 hour ago, Darth Sanguis said:

To be fair, I'm out of warnings, so no more memes. I don't feel like setting up an alt account.

Just so you’re aware, you aren’t one of the people I’m referring to. There’s 4 or 5 of them that seem to think they are celebrities or something and talk down to the rest of us. You are not like that.

@Revan Reborn are you going for your 4th or 5th ban there?