After they have ruined most of the brands that made me fall in love with them, FFG are now taking away the last thing I have from them.
Their forums have been a way for me to feel like im part of the community, armada and legion has both been big for me as well as xwing previously. Ive not been very active but ive always lurked, read, laughed and cried on these forums.
 
But now FFG is truly dead, be it their own fault or asmodee I see this as the final sigh before the name perishes completely. I feel so sad that things went this way, FFG was once the undisputed grand masters of boardgames and with XW they moved into and took firm hold of miniature gaming as well. Man I wanna cry...Think I am tbh...
 
Thanks everyone for making this such a great community, despite the soulless corporate overlords not giving two damns worth about it. I love you all.
 
That is that.

What about the boy's attack on the cookies?

Around the egg nog a perimeter create.
 

Brooks was let got months ago, shortly before adepticon. I don't think they've moved onto anything else yet.  Frank is the only person I haven't heard anything on. I had the opportunity to talk to him at worlds and he said he was still with ffg but not working on x-wing.
 
I was immensely sad to hear the news about Max.  Max had wonderful insight into both the game and community. He was my favorite dev and the game is dramatically more fun because of him. 

So, this leaves Frank Brooks and Brooks Flugaur Leavitt for possible designers that may be transition over to AMG...
...Or are they both gone as well...?

Okay, so I’m gonna expand on this dentist analogy that got put in here, because in my mind, it fits. 
 
Most of the time my patients don’t need anything other than a cleaning. Sometimes, there’s a small problem that just needs a minor correction, a little polishing (XI7’s)
 
Often times I’ll see a problem in someone’s mouth that doesn’t seem like a big deal until I dig deeper (literally) and find it has some major issues, and I need to work on it until it’s just a shell of what it was.  (Yavaris, Demo). 
 
Sometimes a tooth is so messed up you just have to take it out. (SA, Pryce, Bail). 
 
The times dentists get in the most trouble, though, is when they try to fix something that’s not great, but isn’t hurting anything either.  Replacing an old, outdated filling that still works just fine, but looks ugly has lead to more issues than I care to think about. That’s when “I went to the dentist to fix my teeth, but (s)he broke them instead” happens. It’s usually better to just leave it alone, because you don’t know how much you “fixing” it will mess other stuff up.  (Devastator, Independence)
No matter how gentle I am, my patients almost always feel some discomfort during and after a procedure. But it’s necessary to promote healing.  (1.5 will likely be better for the game as a whole)

thing is why would they do that?  it actually limits them from doing a new GSD further down the line like they did with the ISD....and also cuts into available design space for other ships.  Look at other games that have 3 or 4 ships that do the same thing with similar upgrade capacity!
There is no reason for them to change anything on the ship cards except to add traits or multi-faction a ship..

I believe they were trying to address individual activations (or back to back) that are too strong. Avenger as it was allowed for single activation that can one-shot any ship except the hawk and SSD. This isn’t fun in any way to face. I believe you could actually one shot a hawk as well (without agate) but it would require a nearly perfect roll
 
Yavaris allowing double taps puts a single Yavaris activation at a possible 20 damage from squads (without Norra) plus the ship itself shooting. Now it’s down to 16, but that 16 is harder to achieve than the 20 was. 
 
Demolisher’s triple tap allowed for over 20 damage in a sequence that you can’t prevent if the Demolisher player has first and the target ship activated before Demo.
 
Upping points costs doesn’t remove the NPE of facing it and really just means that fleets will adjust to the points and still use it. A mechanical change is better. Making Avenger a discard doesn’t address how it was most strongly used as a massive first strike weapon. 
 
Whether or not you believe the need was necessary, I think I’m roughly describing the logic they used to reach the decision. 

^This. Gamemechanics that give the opposing player no chance to react at all are never a good design choice. NEVER.

You can dislike what the "influencers" as you call them did, but they're likely developers for the game too? Like, anything that gets tested comes from someone somewhere?
So the testers have no impact on anything? Uhhhh ok. That's a take alright.

A bit too much of a rabbit hole here.
Isnt it enough to accept that there were a few super powerful things in the game, and that bringing them back to the fold then creates space for a lot more diversity? Especially for the new factions coming in?
The alternative is ongoing powercreep, which is moaned about far more. If you dont fix yavaris, avenger etc, you have to bring something equally stupid in to the clone wars factions too if you want the game to grow at all.
I think theyve done a great job.
Worst case scenario, they could move to a yearly card pack that updates the most problematic dozen or so cards (up and down). But that wasnt the point of this exercise.
 

This is a valid criticism. Casually insulting playtesters like this
is not.
There certainly several cards that are poor enough to justify possible improvement. General Madine comes to mind. The general issue is that if you are trying to improve everything to the level of Demolisher and ECM, you are very likely to remove the capabilities of ships as the driving element of the game, but finding the latest and greatest most powerful combinations of cards. There is no upper limit on "Well let's buff the poor things into line with the greatest things". And you have to go that far, because in upgrade slots with truly dominant options (e.g. DR and ECM), good is not good enough.
Again, there are plenty of cards that probably could have been buffed, but that can't be the only move. Nerfing dominant cards is the other half of good balance management.
Frankly, on a certain level this is the point. Games are played by two people. One person having fun winning with NPE cards doesn't well justify the other person having the terrible time, not when the game can be moved towards a state where one person can still win without those NPEs and both players can feel that they did well and played well and it wasn't a combination of cards that won but a match of player skill and dice.
Read the above. Read what he actually wrote, as opposed to what you wanted him to have said. I am personally more than happy to hear constructive criticisms and suggestions to improve the game. That's not what was offered, and that's not what Gink was answering. He was not sensitive, he responded appropriately.

I will also publicly note, as I already did on the Steel Strategy podcast there are elements of the errata I don't agree with either, I would have preferred we address, or would have preferred a subtly different route than what FFG decided. I'll be straight, I don't think of every other tester as a personal friend, nor do I agree with all of them about all of the changes. That said, I respect and appreciate the genuine effort and hard work put forward by everyone, and I will not let casual insults that don't even bother to own up to their nature pass me easily by.

Hey everybody,

Some folks have been messaging me with questions about some of the new Clone Wars content and how certain card interactions work. Thank you for that level of trust!
With all the Armada Devs having been layed off, and not knowing when AMG will start answering questions. All I can do is try my best to help.

Please feel free to either keep DMing me or drop your questions here just so I can keep a tally of what questions are ongoing. I'm starting the process of getting Clone Wars KARM made, but it likely won't be ready until a month or so after release as things take time to write up, debate with other judges, and try and also get developer feedback (not a guarantee, but its nice when it happens).

I'm just as excited to dig into all the new rules as everybody else.

*Please note, that nothing is officially endorsed by FFG, however I have Judged at GenCon 2019 and would of Judged alongside Brooks at Worlds 2020 and remain in active communication with Ian Cross (multiple armada Worlds Judge) as well as several other individuals (Such as Drasnighta) that are well-versed in the Armada rulebook. You can see these discussions happen on the community run Star Wars Armada Discord.

Hey everyone,
Duck_bird here, having finally recovered (mostly) from the fatigue brought on by my super fun Armada World’s Roadtrip!  Truthiness, Formynder, and I all drove from Maryland up to Chicago - a whopping 12 hour drive - and it was absolutely worth it.  I got to meet a ton of fun nerds whom I only knew online, and I got to personally play against some of the big names in the Armada scene!  It was a blast meeting everyone, and while I’m terrible at names and faces, everyone I met was super cool.
I ended up placing 10th overall, which I am utterly delighted with.  In a world of Raddus and Reikan as the most viable rebel admirals, I got Madine high enough up there that statistically he’s the 3rd best rebel admiral this world’s season!  Boom!
Before I get into my fleet and games writeup, I wanted to touch on a few FAQs I got throughout our trip.
Q:  Why Madine?
A:  Madine is manner.
Long story short, I hate Reikan and Raddus and I am so stubborn in my quest to be unique that I refuse to play them.  I started with a liberty list for which Madine was a good fit, and eventually got addicted to maneuvering CR90s around.  Admo benefits immensely from the potential extra 2 clicks of yaw, and even flotillas are amazingly hard to pin down when maneuvering with Madine.  To put it simply, he’s a ton of fun and in my opinion a perfectly legitimate admiral.
Q:  Is it weird being the only woman at a tournament like this?
A:  Honestly no.  Aside from being asked this question more than a couple times, I experienced no issues whatsoever.  The armada community is great.
Q:  Why no bid with a fleet like yours?  5 activations and no bid is crazy!
A:  I realized during the various iterations of this fleet that I cannot afford the points I’d need to really compete in the bidding war.  I routinely played against people with 20+ point bids, and I’m simply not gonna compete with that. A one point bid lets me sometimes go first against rebel bomber fleets, and that’s nice, but ultimately my fleet is happy to go first or second.  My ships are so fast and so maneuverable that even when out-activated as 2nd player I can usually keep everything in a position where they cannot be last-firsted.
Q:  Why Salvage Run over Sensor Net?
A:  I’m not comfortable enough with Sensor net to really feel like I can get enough points out of it.  My fleet is also super fragile. Sensor Net requires me to stay in one spot and farm tokens. I can have 2 ships + the VCX pick up the salvage tokens by turn 2 and book it,  letting the rest of my ships spread out and RUN. Finally, free nav tokens on every ship means I don’t have to spend the first turn banking them.
So without further ado, the fleet I ran was the following:
 
Name: MADINE IS MANNER MUCH EXCITING
Faction: Rebel
Commander: General Madine
Assault: Most Wanted
Defense: Fire Lanes
Navigation: Salvage Run
MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63)
• General Madine (30)
• Lando Carissian (4)
• Ordnance Experts (4)
• Reinforced Blast Doors (5)
• External Racks (3)
• Admonition (8)
= 117 Points
CR90 Corvette A (44)
• Engine Techs (8)
• Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (7)
• Jaina's Light (2)
= 61 Points
CR90 Corvette A (44)
• Engine Techs (8)
• Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (7)
= 59 Points
GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Toryn Farr (7)
• Bright Hope (2)
= 27 Points
GR-75 Medium Transports (18)
• Slicer Tools (7)
• Quantum Storm (1)
= 26 Points
Squadrons:
• Dash Rendar (24)
• Ketsu Onyo (22)
• 2 x VCX-100 Freighter (30)
• Tycho Celchu (16)
• Shara Bey (17)
= 109 Points
Total Points: 399
 
I must have gone through a million variations since I picked up Madine as a project.  I started with Mon Karren and Paragon as my combat ships, but I wasn’t comfortable enough to take them to worlds.  I dropped Paragon for a pair of cr90s, and eventually turned the lib into admo as I was afraid I’d need more 2nd player insurance and defense against squadrons.  This let me expand the squadron wing to both A wing aces, 2 VCX for strategic power, and Dash/Ketsu for rogue power and a bit of bombing strength. Ketsu’s ability synergizes perfectly with the A wing aces who are fast enough to position in places where a speed 2 Dengar or a speed 1 Jan cannot give them heavy.
I almost took Cluster Bombs on both cr90s, but changed my mind at the last second and took Slicer Tools instead.  I think it was the right call. RBDs on Admo saved my flagship in two games and was DEFINITELY a good purchase.
 
Day 1:  
 
Game 1:  My first opponent was running a squadless Motti fleet with an ISD Kuat Avenger, Demolisher, a flagship Arquittens, a raider, and gozanti.
In this situation he outactivated me by one, and so would be able to last-first.  This always makes it so I need to play incredibly carefully. However, his lack of squadrons mean that my squads are free to hunt whatever ships I wish.  
He chose to go first player and we played my Most Wanted.  His fleet was deployed aggressively, with the ISD, Raider, and Demo all pointing straight ahead.  The flagship arq was in the back, but not quite life-boating it by hugging the far wall. I deploy Admo across from the ISD, with my squadrons set to hunt the raider, and my CR90s on either flank to distract or draw enemy ships away.  
The game unfolded about as I expected, and was not super interesting.  I didn’t really have the damage to pick on the ISD, so I made Demo the most wanted ship and made a plan to hunt it and the raider.  Some amazing shots picked my flotillas off at long range, but my squadrons made quick work of the raider, and Demo fell after a failed attack run on Admonition.  I started the day off with a solid win.
 
Game 2:  This was a match against Norm, who’s one of the big Armada names out of Canada.  I was definitely afraid going into this match! Norm’s fleet was an ISD2 kitted out quite defensively with Brunson, EWS, and QBTs most notably among its upgrades.  The interesting bit was 7th fleet paired off with a gladiator packing Expert Shield Teams to throw more shields over to the ISD. Then a very angry rogue squad blob of I think Maarek, Morna, Jendon, Bossk, Mauler and Dengar.
Norm went first and once again chose my Most Wanted.  This was a boring game, and a bit of a bungle on my part.  Norm deployed very defensively in the left corner of the board.  I needed to make a choice here. Either deploy in the other corner and take the 6, or go all-in on killing that ISD.  I kind of tried to do both, and it did not work out. I deployed my whole fleet in a tight formation with my squadrons hanging tight around it.  My plan was to try to bait a squadron fight within my flak bubble, but Norm flew slow and didn’t bite. So I turned in and got a little too close.  I then made several big mistakes, including flakking Bossk, and putting Jaina’s Light in such a position that I had to sacrifice squadrons to save her.  By turn 4 I was on damage-control duty, just trying to save points and not bleed out.
Ended this game with a moderate loss that could have been way worse.  Should have just ran and taken the 6, or gone ham. Instead I half-assed it and earned a defeat.  Oh well, lessons learned!
 
Game 3:  My opponent here was packing an 8-activation Reikan list with a Liberty and a ton of hammerheads.  I think 1 lifeboat torpedo HH and 3 scout HHs with TFO and slaved turrets. No squads though! Afraid of my VCX, he gave me first player and I chose his Solar Corona.  SC doesn’t bother my fleet at all. I just spread out on the back edge and I’m fast and maneuverable enough to be anywhere.
So I did just that.  Admo in the middle flanked by flotillas, and each CR90 off to one side.  Squads piled up in the middle. He had the final 3 activations every round, so I couldn’t easily line up any big engages.  I planned to try to get around all the hammerheads. My right most CR90 turned right to bait some hammerheads, and it worked beautifully.  All 3 scout hammerheads turned hard towards it, putting 2 of them in a position where they would ultimately not be able to take part in the fight.  My other ships approached cautiously, mindful of the gunnery team toting Liberty.
My opponent got incredibly unlucky here.  He flew his liberty on a rock, which was not a bad call.   It put him in a very good position strategically. However he drew the worst possible crit, Capacitor Failure, instantly dropping all 5 of his front shields.  Ketsu and Dash took this as an open invitation to start dumping damage into the poor ship. I quickly changed plans from “Fly around and bait” to “Go for the throat!”
Turn 2 opened with some classic Madine shenanigans.  My rightmost CR90 spend its nav dial and token and pulled a hard 180, leaving two hammerheads aiming at nothing and pointed far from the fight.  Admo flew up in front of the liberty. My other ships approached cautiously, but I goofed and let my flotillas creep into the danger zone. My opponent realized that it was unlikely Admo would go down in a single shot, and opted to delete my poor flotillas instead.  Probably the right call, and I’d been hoping he’d waste a shot on Admo.
The liberty went down in flames and I started hunting any other ships I could find.  CR90s busied themselves ramming flotillas to death, and Admo chased after hammerheads running for their lives.  Dash and Ketsu go hunting the lifeboat flotilla. The rest of my squads are pretty useless now without their flotillas, but the game still ends in a solid win for me.

 
Game 4:  My fourth opponent had a very interesting Raddus list.  Instead of the classic Liberty of MC75 drops that people were afraid of, it was Defiance tricked out with a load of bombers inside Rapid Launch Bays!  Very cool! The rest of the list were a pair of flotillas, and a cr90 lifeboat for Raddus himself. I believe it was 3 YTs and Ketsu?, then a Hawk, Nym, Gold, and a Scurrg inside the pickle.
He chose to go first and picked my Most Wanted, an easy choice for Raddus players.  Probably a weakness of my list.
Against Raddus my list needs to spread out.  I can’t ever leave two of my combat ships in a spot where they can get forked by the drop.  My CR90s flew up cautiously a good distance apart from each other. Admo flew up the right flank slow enough to have options, and my flotillas flew up the middle with my squadrons.  The YTs unsupported were easy pickings, so I quickly got Tycho and Shara on duty holding them up. I got Jaina’s in a decent spot to shoot at the flagship and then on turn 3 the Defiance drop happened.
It was lined up in a good spot to catch Admo.  Here is where Madine shines. Defiance plopped down in Admo’s front arc, double arcing Admo in return, and in a place where with any other admiral, there would have been no safe place to land.  My slicer tools flotilla was unfortunately nearby as well, and I’d have to choose which ship to save. I could slice Defiance to a not-squad command, but Admo would still eat a close range double arc.  So I had to activate Admonition, and used Madine’s power to do a 2-2-1-0 inside turn, landing me safely in Defiance’s front arc.
Defiance activated, dropping the squadrons and putting some damage into poor Admo’s butt.  My slicer tools flotilla went down in flames. But Admo held on. With the rest of my turn, Tycho and a VCX were able to fly in range to snipe the Hawk, and then Ketsu was able to get close enough to tie up (with Tycho’s help) all the heavy bombers. They would not get another chance to bomb.  The Raddus flagship goes down, and Admo can easily tank another Defiance front arc shot. RBDs save me from another double-ram. The rest of the game would be running from Defiance and cleaning up bombers and flotillas. A solid win, and I end the day on 30 points.

Day 2:
 
Game 1:  My first opponent on Day 1 is JJ himself!  He had an interesting squadless Raddus list which I was quite afraid of.  Tons of activations. A couple CR90s flying around, a Profundity drop with a hammerhead inside.  Very spooky.
And here is where the two VCX in my list pay off.  JJ takes a glance at my list and hands me first player.  We both agreed this was a mistake that he probably wouldn’t have made if everyone wasn’t fatigued from so much Armada in one day.  Most Wanted is an easy pick for Raddus lists and would have been a very strong choice against my fleet.
So I had first player, and Station Assault was the clear choice.  I would have the first activation each round, and an activation advantage until Profundity dropped with its strategic adviser and baby hammerhead.  I’d also have no squadrons to worry about. Essentially, as long as I split my fleet up, I could not possibly get caught, and my squads would be free to eat the stations while I waited out the drop.  
JJ split the stations up in far corners of the map, despite my efforts to put debris fields to force them out of the far corners.  I deployed in typical anti-raddus fashion: Each CR90 in a corner, admo down the middle, and flotillas between each other ship. My squads were positioned to start chewing on the rightmost station.  JJ’s admo was deployed in the middle, a GR75 off to my far right, and the Raddus flagship on the far left.
I opened the turn by flinging Shara and Tycho at the right station.  They would spend the rest of the game bombing the station while the VCX plodded over to help.  I flew my ships up cautiously, flanking hard to the sides to make sure I couldn’t be forked by a Raddus drop.  Dash and Ketsu started putting damage into Admonition. I knew they couldn’t kill it alone, but I was hoping to lure it into a position where I could back-to-back ET ram it to death.  JJ was well aware of this though and flew down the middle of the board.
Raddus dropped on turn 3 on the right side of the board, threatening one of my 90s.  He recognized that he couldn’t really catch me, and instead deployed both the 75 and hammerhead in such a way that they double-arced my squads picking on the station.  A good call to go for points. I was forced to activate my cr90 first, which flew away to safety. JJ’s admo jumped up to speed 4 and booked it away. I wasn’t catching it, even with Madine powers.  I resigned to hunting down the stations and hammerhead which couldn’t easily avoid destruction. JJ’s overlapping flak punished my squadrons, and was able to kill Shara before I was able to fly them to safety.
The game ended with both stations destroyed as well as the hammerhead,  and I had lost Shara to a series of flak double arcs. 7-4 victory to start out the day
 
Game 2:  My next opponent was Dong Lee who had an interesting Motti list.  It was a tricked out BT Avenger with Motti, a standard issue Demolisher, two flotillas, and a medium squad wing built to defend against other squadrons:  Dengar, Mauler, Zertik, and 3 TIE Advanceds. Dong chose to go first and picked my Fire Lanes objective.
I dropped the station at distance 4 in the middle of the board.  We crammed all the rest of the obstacles around the station, giving me a perfect spot to place my fire lanes tokens.  My VCX could sit on obstacles all game, unable to be tied down, and shuffle tokens to their heart's content. I placed 2 fire lanes tokens in the middle of the board, and one far off to the right.
I placed Bright Hope near the tokens along with my squads.  Jaina’s Light positioned across from the enemy flotillas and squadrons, ready to fly through the huge cluster of asteroids.  Interestingly enough, both Avenger and Demo deployed on the right flank, contesting my throw-away token that I had a cr90 and QS on.  Admo deployed sideways, waiting to intercept Avenger.
We both played cautiously with our squadrons.  All the important ones hid on obstacles, afraid to commit to the fight.  Demo and Avenger surged forward to contest the one fire lane. My Cr90 pulled a hard Madine and ran away from Demo.  Admo kept trying to force Avenger to move into close range, but I also had to be very wary of getting in BT range. Quantum Storm flew wide and then turned in, eternally slicing Avenger to a squadron command every turn.  Once a Madine flotilla gets behind you it can be anywhere.
Essentially I was gaining 30 points per turn, and he was gaining 15.  In retrospect I should have put all 3 tokens in the middle of the board.  He’d be forced to fly straight into me through a bunch of asteroids, and without strategic of his own, if he ever does manage to contest the token, I can just throw them under his ships.  I thought I was being sneaky putting a token off on the flank, but it ended up just giving him free points for the first few rounds!
Around turn 4 the squadron fight started.  An advanced and Dengar pounced on Dash, who started taking a beating.  However, this gave me the opportunity to tie up Mauler and another advanced with Shara, more advanceds with Tycho, and get Ketsu on Dengar so he couldn’t free Mauler up.  I’d end up losing Dash but Zertik and the advanceds went down quickly. With only 5 activations and 2nd player I wasn’t able to line up any big attack runs on his ships, so I kind of stopped trying to and focused on farming points and flotillas.
Unfortunately, on turn 5 I made a massive blunder.  I knew Dash was going to die, but that should have been the only casualty I needed to take.  Instead in a moment of potato-brain, I flew Jainas right into Demo’s path. Just straight up inted it.  A completely silly absent minded mistake. Jaina’s exploded. Whoops. On the plus side I was still ahead, now comfortably farming all the tokens and cleaning up squadrons.  Game ended with a 119 point MOV, just one point from an 8-3! Dang!
I’m gonna be grumpy at myself for a while for such a boneheaded move, but it’s hard to not make mistakes after so much Armada in so few days!
 
Game 3:  My final game was against Au Shiu Yik.  I know he’s a huge name in the game and has won all sorts of tournaments, so I was very worried going into this game!   Au had a Reikan list with Defiance, a lifeboat hammerhead, two flotillas, and a boatload of angry rebel squadrons, mostly bombers.  I think we had Rogue, Dutch, Nym, Gold, Scurrgs, and 2 VCX. My whopping one point bid bought me initiative. I thought hard about choosing to go second, but he also had VCXs and would out-activate me.  I had to go first.
So I looked at his objectives.  Advanced Gunnery against Defiance is almost always a no-no.  Again if I had an activation advantage it wouldn’t be so bad.  Admo with AG as first player is devastating. But no luck there.  Fire lanes I would have taken IF he didn’t have Adar Talon. My normal plan is to steal other people’s fire lanes on turn 1.  You can grab 2 of the tokens on your first activation, and they cannot get them back. But with Adar… he could. So I was forced to take Intel Sweep.  Bummer.
I deployed with my squadrons bunched up around Bright Hope.  My Cr90s flanked around the sides, and Admo sideways in the middle, ready to go in any direction.  (MADINE POWAH) Defiance plopped down in the middle of the board, ready to run it down mid and control the board.  Raddus’ lifeboat is sideways on the long edge. Both of us choose our Toryn flotillas as objective ships.
We both approach cautiously, moving our sensor net tokens around and jockeying for position.  Au throws Dutch and Rogue out within strike distance. I know it’s bait, but he doesn’t have any intel.  I need to make the move.
I open turn 2 by throwing Shara and Tycho into position.  Shara ties up Dutch and Rogue, and Tycho puts more damage into Rogue.  My next activation throws the VCXs into the fray. Dutch and Rogue are both almost dead.  Au Adar’s Gold squadron into Jaina’s, burning 4 shields off. His other squadrons join the fight.  It’s a bloody squad battle, with both Toryn’s in position to boost the bulk of our squadrons. One of my VCX gets bursted down.  Admo continues to play it safe. My 2nd Cr90 approaches Defiance carefully. Defiance flies forward angrilly, claiming the center of the board.  In the squadron phase, Dash and Ketsu join the fun, finishing off Dutch and Rogue squad.
Turn 3 opens up, and I’m forced to either fly Jaina’s out of range of gold squad, or tie it up.  I opt to activate Toryn. Tycho happily disengages from combat to tie up gold squad, and Shara keeps duking it out with enemy squads.  At this point in the game, my cr90 and admo have both put some passing shots into Defiance. It’s lost most of its left and front shields, but I just don’t think I have the damage to finish it off (something of a theme with this fleet.)  I lined up a nice opening double arc with a cr90, but without putting my whole fleet into it, it’s clear it’s not gonna go down. I park the 90 in front of defiance. Near the end of the turn, I see an opening. I hard Madine turn Admo and line up a double on his objective flotilla.  Admo eats a defiance broadside by w/e, no biggie. I can take at least two of those before I’m in real danger.
Turn 4 opens and I blast the objective ship to pieces.  We’ve each picked up 2 tokens so far, and the final token is under his objective ship.  For a brief moment I think I’ve prevented the objective from happening, but he simply zombies the ship.  Oh yeah, I forgot you could do that. Admo continues to Madine around at speed 4, flying up and attempting to trap Reikan’s lifeboat.
However, he doesn’t activate it immediately, giving me one more chance to steal.  I activate Toryn’s flotilla with a squadron command. At this point, Nym is holding up Dash and my remaining VCX.  Nym’s on 3 health. IF Dash and the VCX manage to kill him, my VCX can then move, grab the token, and put it far out of range of Au’s flotilla.  Then all I need to do in the squadron phase is put Ketsu near his last VCX so it can’t re-grab the token. Unfortunately, Dash wiffs and Nym lives.  Phooey. Woulda been a big ol’ 150 point swing for me. Toryn activates and grabs the token.
My cr90 is obliterated by Defiance, which drops to zero after again trying to kill Admonition.  Tycho slowly kills gold squadron. Jaina’s Light angrily hunts the hammerhead. The rest of my squads slowly cyberbully Nym and the remaining bombers.  Reikan’s hammerhead jumps over Admo.
Turn 5 opens with Admo getting the hammerhead lifeboat to one health.  At this point my combat ships have taken a beating and fly off into the sunset.  Tycho and Dash murder gold squad, and Shara and the VCX finish off Nym. Ketsu flies over to put the final damage into the hammerhead.
The rest of the game is trying to eek out points on each other’s squadrons.  Nothing else dies. I’ve lost a cr90 and Quantum Storm, along with a VCX. Au’s lost the lifeboat and most of his squadrons.  But he’s got the objective, which pushes him to a victory. My final game ends in a 5-6. So close!

 
So I end the day at 49 points and take 10th place.  I’m very happy with how I played overall. I definitely made mistakes, but it’s pretty hard not to with 7 games in 2 days.  I love the fleet. I wish I had more ship power to get more use out of Madine, but the squad component is really solid. I wouldn’t change much for this archetype.  And I officially made MADINE the 3rd best performing rebel admiral. In a sea of smelly Raddus and Reikan players, Madine comes out next in line! I love it!
After the tournament some of us went over to Kuma’s for burgers.  Then back to the hotel to sleep, and unfortunately puke my brains out for an hour, just in time for our 12 hour road trip back home.  Still though, what a fun experience Worlds was. I had a blast overall!

Not FFG's fault, they have no control over it.
Blame Asmodee and whom they choose to have as distributors. 

This.
I'm pro capitalism every day of the week too. But it's far from a perfect system. If it were a perfect system we wouldn't need government oversight to protect us from monopolies, price gouging, insider trading and so many other things. So while I don't disagree with the sentiment of of the statement make by @daggertx, I feel it could have been worded better as to not sound like trolling.
As an aside, I love this community and how we can keep conversation civil (outside of a select few who I haven't seen around lately, you all know who I'm talking about). So Kudos to all of us.
Lastly, my deepest condolences go out to everyone who lost their job at this time. As someone who has lost their job during this time of year I know how tough it can be, esp. if you have children. But such talent will most certainly be picked up without much waiting (I have no talent and only had about 40 days between jobs). And the silver lining of the pandemic is that more and more companies are making remote working not just a possibility but a requirement. So even if they take a job in a different city, they may not have to relocate permanently.

Did you know that it's possible to criticize the bad aspects of capitalism without immediately advocating full socialism/communism?

I think you're mixing up wishing AMG well with enthusiasm for this move. Those are two very different things. And perhaps I'm not being clear. I hope AMG does well with the game, and I have no personal animosity toward them. They are at the whims of Asmodee as much as FFG. I hope they do well with our game simply because I want our game to continue on and even expand.
As for enthusiasm for this move? Absolutely positively not. I hate this move. It has caused friends to lose jobs, disrupts the game at a critical juncture of its viability, and further dismantles a great studio Asmodee seems intent on wrecking.

Most of those sins you list are Asmodee's, not AMG's. I'm sorry you don't care for Crisis Protocol, but not every game a company makes is for everyone. I don't care for X-Wing, but I still love FFG for Armada. I am perfectly capable of hoping AMG does well and being pissed off at Asmodee for treating FFG like garbage. Why? Because I want this game to continue. Period. Am I going to give AMG the benefit of the doubt? Absolutely not. They really need to earn this community's trust, which will be hard given the nature of this change. Do I hope they do well? Absolutely. The alternative is this game dying. By wishing AMG ill, as you seem to want to do, I would be actively rooting for this game to die.

Many of the names I've heard from AMG are former Privateer Press developers and designers. PP created Warmachine/Hordes which had some of the best competitive rules and gameplay of any minis-wargame I've been involved with. I'm very displeased that FFG is being torn up like this and my friends are losing their jobs. AMG is not at fault for this. Asmodee is, and I'm willing to give AMG a fair shake.

I am really sad to hear that we lose devs like MG. How can there be a conitnuity in game development? The old devs know the game. They know the issues that have been discussed for years.
But even more sad it is as soon as you look beyond what it means for us and for the game. That is totally the wrong time for lay offs. I am so sorry for those losing their job.

This gets a strong "WTF?" from me.
I can see trying to streamline game production or build synergies. But to give three well regarded, outstanding games, at least tow of which are proven money-makers, and hand them to a new studio that's had one product that is less than a year old strikes me as risky.  Even if it's 100% of the design and development teams -- and it appears it is not -- just the leadership and structure change introduces risk.
Plus changing labels from a proven brand ... I dunno.  I know what an FFG game is, or used to. I don't know what an AMG game is.
My X-wing and Legion buying have slowed dramatically already and I'll probably not get a face to face game in for at least another six months with the pandemic, so this is just a good reason to hit pause and wait things out.

This.
I think the issue with Sloane is that she isn't a common enough type of character, who was essentially a "This is a reason to play the faction and a list that isn't a super mega efficient swarm double modding everything all the time, or mega aces who just refuse to interact" piece. 
That is really important to any faction that isn't going to have Jedi,  Boba, or droids. We kinda need more 'build around' options, and Sloane... kinda represents the way the game should go in a certain sense? She is highly interactive with multiple paths to defeat her, but she heavily changes the nature of the game she is in and you actually need to think about how you tackle her, and punishes you for going too 'all in' on one strategy.
Sloane might be 'too good' but she definitely shouldn't be 'Leia'd.' If a faction lacks anything that is 'too good' its going to be a bad faction and the game just becomes 'efficiency wing.' The entire point of asymmetric games with the ability for players to choose their powers and abilities is that you get to choose things that are way better than what other factions can take. Guile as a character wouldn't function if his Flash Kick and Sonic Boom weren't broken strong defensive tools that entirely dictate how you fight Guile, for example, because his entire kit is based around these tools and how he can't apply them aggressively, making him feel different than someone who is just generically very good like Ryu or whatever. Sloane is an interesting effect because she has so many counter-play options available that transform it from a generic 'passive mod aura' to something more dynamic, while still being clearly extremely powerful. You need options that give a character (or in this case a faction) 'too much' value in a certain field so your opponent is forced to try to counter it, and so your not just smashing your highpoints against each other mindlessly. 
I want to play in an X-wing where Sloane swarms are good way more than I want to play in an X-wing where only Droids swarms are good. Obviously both have space to be good, but a lot of people on the forums catastrophize anything which forces you to think about anything besides arc coverage and dials. Yes, the core of the game should be about this and every list should care about this stuff, but the fun of a list builder game is how your list and your opponent's list introduce new space besides the core game, while the core game still matters. We shouldn't push to a place where the core interactions don't matter (To use another FFG listbuilder/deckbuilder game as an example, Netrunner's meta sucked when it was all Inversificator Kits, Cerebral Imaging, and Bad Publicity decks to basically turn the game into a complete nonsense fest that had nothing to do with the core game of 'runners build up rigs to break through ice efficiently, corps use ice to slow down the runner from getting into important servers' and ice legit just didn't matter), but the game also shouldn't just be the core interactions either. 
Sloane does an excellent job of doing exactly that, pushing the game out of 'pure core' interactions while still being an effect that rewards you for being good at the core mechanics of the game. Ergo, she should be 'deliberately overtuned' to at least some extent so she can be part of what the imperial faction is 'about.'