Exhaust means "tap", and you get it back when you ready tokens. So you get it for 1 or your 2 attacks a turn essentially.

While I love the audacity of it, you would lost that engagement. They have the same firepower at long range and there are 2 of them. If you suck 184 points into a single VSD 1 I still don't see it winning. I never said I'd win the engagement. I said I'd be happy to square off against them. That is to say, I'm using my 130ish point ship to engage two 92ish point ships...already I'm happy with the trade, as I have more non-engaged points to use wherever I please. Take, for example, a game I had today (which mirrors a game against 2 VSDs a month ago) where one AFMKII was too far from his friend, not allowing them to support eachother. My entire 300 points worth of combat power slammed into ~210 of his. Essentially, I will win that fight hands down. If you force your opponent to split his focus in a way that allows you to direct more points at less of his points in a few rounds of combat: you will win. So, i'm not saying my upgraded VSD will, alone, kill two naked-ISDs; I'm pointing out the fact that if he decides to square off in that way, I will have the upper hand as the rest of my points rolls up his flank and helps finish off one of ISDs, or kills the rest of his points while my VSD valiantly goes down in flames, hopefully taking at least one ISD and leaving the other wounded enough to be shot dead by the rest of my fleet. Yet, my squadrons can easily kill 2-3 ships alone in a 6-turn game...especially if SupPos or precision strike gets picked, and this type of list has no answers to that. 5 50/50 rolls and 3 black dice is going to shred people who can't engage them. Furthermore, if I'm comfortable tangoing with 2 impstars, 2 Vic's will not even remotely phase me. Plus, I'll have a raider with a ton of toys to combo with my demolisher to delete a flank. These are all valid concerns. Superior Positions or Precision Strike would definitely pose problems, but the odds are high that you won't see either (as second player, which you'd probably be unless you really strip down your Vics, I wouldn't include either objective, and as first, any of the defense objectives look better than those, so it's hard to imagine a situation where you'd have to choose them, unless you like challenges). Lack of a fighter screen is a concern with any build that isn't built to move faster than bombers, and of course that problem is accentuated if Rhymer's involved (although my group doesn't usually play mirror matches). The question was how that kind of five ship list (3VSDs/2Glads) would fare against a list with 3 ISDs. Without knowing point totals for the ISD, it's hard to know just how many bombers one can fit into a 3ISD list but assuming 92 per ISD, plus a commander at somewhere between 24-38 so far, you'd have somewhere between 86 and 100 points (assuming no upgrades to the ISDs, other than a commander). You can top out at Rhymer and 9 Bombers, depending on the commander you choose (assuming (1) you don't add any upgrades to your ISDs, beyond a commander, and (2) your fleet uses just wave 1 squadrons and not wave 2 squadrons, which look like they will cost more). Whether those three ISDs + fighter wing are better than 3 Vics/2 Glads is the question. In theory, you would think that the bombers would give a decided advantage coupled with Rhymer's range, but there's a lot of variables to consider. To maximize them, you need squadron commands, so no repairs for the naked ISDs, and with their larger bases, I wonder how fast an ISD can go before it starts colliding with its fighter screen. Even naked Vics with Motti can take a pounding, and Vic Is + Glads + Screed can rack up damage, especially if ACMs are in play. In some ways, I think the higher speed of the ISDs will help the Vics, between that and bringing the enemy into the Vics firing arcs sooner, especially if the ISDs lose mobility at higher speeds. It's not my preferred build, just commenting on an idea Lyraeus had mentioned in passing that I'd happened to try. I don't expect either list (3VSD/2Glads or 3ISDs) will be anything other than a novelty list, but it's fun to theorize (even with incomplete information). Well, for me, they would be stuck with Fleet Ambush then. So 3 of their ships would be within striking range on turn one...as in EVERYTHING. 3 Black Dice and 5 Blue dice flying in at you (since you can't contend it) is going to cause a ton of damage, esp since tokens will be pretty useless. Average 5.5 damage or so, pile that ontop of Victory shots and then a demolisher saddling up next to a ship to unload...it would be scary for me, sure; but I run the list I run so that I never face a rock with my scissor fleet. As to 3VSDs/2GSDs vs 3ISDs and maybe some squads: I don't see the point in discussing squadron-less builds. Essentially they auto-lose against non-gimick builds. The 3ISDs with the silly amount of bombers you thought up would probably decimate the aforementioned 5-ship list...but who cares? It's blatant scissors beating blatant paper. The question is, then; how would the scissor build fare against any list with decent fighter support? About as well as a 300 pt ISD list against a 400 pt list. I guess, however, that you guys acknowledge these lists as novelties...of course there I diverge and fail to see how it's fun talking about such terrible lists at all. It's like playing X-Wing and saying I'm going to run 6 HWK-290s; or making a 75 point list designed to kill X, and calling it a day. Yet, my squadrons can easily kill 2-3 ships alone in a 6-turn game...especially if SupPos or precision strike gets picked, and this type of list has no answers to that. 5 50/50 rolls and 3 black dice is going to shred people who can't engage them. Furthermore, if I'm comfortable tangoing with 2 impstars, 2 Vic's will not even remotely phase me. Plus, I'll have a raider with a ton of toys to combo with my demolisher to delete a flank. I am not sure how your squadrons will kill 2 to 3 ships in a game. They will take shields down but unless you are killing nebs and CR90's I think you will get at best 1 maybe 2 if you roll REALLY good If the opponent has zero squadrons, this isn't remotely unreasonable. If you park in front of a non-corvette ship, it's pretty likely you'll get landed on...so put your ship back in front. If they're going fast enough you might only get 3 turns of shooting, but there are other things on the board that can/will threaten them, so shooting with single attacks that can eat through shields in such a way that tokens simply won't help much means that even that massively shielded AFMKII with Advanced Projectors is going to explode fast when you chuck up to 9 blacks and 15 blues at it. Perhaps Rhymer skews my view on the effectiveness of squadrons against ships? However, my brother and I were testing B-Wings and the medium-base ships, and you can just keep blasting their front unless they can speed-3 past you: this alone can cause the other elements of your force to kill off the AF or nebulon, etc. The point is, the same concept of Vic1 that is uses primarily for area denial: you don't have to directly use your points for them to work. Consider Gallant Haven that is never used, but allows the rebel formation to get right in the teeth of the imps and jump out to utterly decimate their fighter wing...never once did the GH ability fire, but it won you the dogfight.

Perhaps I'll try that next...been debating gunnery team and flight controllers. Perhaps Intel would work wonders on a Vic-1. Eat tokens with my long range shots while I close to close range. I'll def have to try this...

Maybe. I have seen a set up like that fail due to a simple obstacle/obstruction. One time a Glad had to run into aestroid to get the shot lost a black dice and rolled 2 hits and a blank. The Mon Mothma Whale made him reroll the crit and it came up hit so that helps. It then died to the Whales return fire due to a CF dial and It had already lost a hull due to the crit and could not spend used defense tokens so the 1 accuracy later the brace was gone and the redirect was already used up, the 3 remaining red (it used Enhanced Armaments) and blue hit its side that shot at it and destroyed it. Lucky shot really bit hey no complaints here. The Whale later died to Rhymer though. . . Hate him sometimes A perfect example of why I love this game. The bad situation was from pilot error, not dice, so better flying essentially can win you 99% of games imo. X-wing it's much lower, though better than chance.

I've tried one of those 3VSD/2GSD fleets. They're pretty stripped down--ACMs on both GSD Is, plus one Demolisher title leaves room for 3 VSD 1s, Motti/Screed, and 21/19 left over for VSD upgrades and/or your bid. You don't have much margin for error when you are engaged, but 3 VSD front arcs can deny an incredible amount of space on the board. Run maneuver commands for the first two or three turns and recklessly bull-rush at speed 2, and ACMs are almost viable on the VSD (expanded launchers maybe, too, though the price is a little high for my tastes; either way, odds are someone's forced into close range, either by the Gladiators or one of the other Victories pushing forwards). If your objective cuts the board size down (minefields, fleet ambush) or forces both sides into one spot (contested outpost), even better. Plus the look on your opponent's face when you start is priceless... Yet, my squadrons can easily kill 2-3 ships alone in a 6-turn game...especially if SupPos or precision strike gets picked, and this type of list has no answers to that. 5 50/50 rolls and 3 black dice is going to shred people who can't engage them. Furthermore, if I'm comfortable tangoing with 2 impstars, 2 Vic's will not even remotely phase me. Plus, I'll have a raider with a ton of toys to combo with my demolisher to delete a flank.

Pretty sure I'd be happy to to play against 4 naked ISDs with my 3 ship, full squadron list. Easy win. Possibly but you are likely using Rhymer so it would work in your favor. Careful though, if they maneuver like a Space whale you may get cornered or penned in. How so? Due to the sluggish profile of victories, they can very easily deny a flank in the long-term. And as I've said multiple times: I'll put my upgraded Vic-1 against two nearly-naked impstars any day.

Pretty sure I'd be happy to to play against 4 naked ISDs with my 3 ship, full squadron list. Easy win.

EA is a turbo laser...glads can't use them. EL is ordnance...Vic-2s can't use them.

What Drasnighta said. Basically, if this is what you're thinking: the ONLY combo is Enhanced Armaments on the Vic-II and Expanded Launchers on the Glad, because neither ship can take the opposite upgrade at all. I would say take an alternative Turbo on your Vic-II (XI7s or H9s imo), and EL on Glad with insidious title. That, or take EL on a Vic-I and Assault Concussion Missiles on your Glad.

I've been considering the supposed slowness and lack of manieverablity on Vic's...not sure if I'm convinced. Perhaps it would benefit the ship to have liberal use of manuever commands...it already is deadly and sturdy, so forgo the repairs and ConcFire in order to get in close and unload those black dice. 3 manuvers to start the game with can really **** with your opponent and put you right in their face for a turn 3/4 black dice assault, and the story of them being useless bricks will work in your Favor.

People keep talking about Mon Mothma and Rhymer...I don't understand this. Tokens work on one attack. If you have your bombers and you're eating their tokens; how are you losing? Are you getting into a spot where rhymer and your only other bomber (since the rest of your fighters are dogfighting) are tossing shots at a ship that none of your over ships are shooting? Well, then you're just playing wrong. Focus fire that shiz...squadron command will force them to make the hard choice of tokening a SINGLE bomb vs saving it for when you unload with 3 red and maybe 3 blue from your victory and/or re-rolling one of the many blacks your demolisher is going to dumb on their face. If you don't squadron command, you can unload 4 reds they have to address THEN bombs later after they're defended against the ships. Evades are great to mitigate the odd shot or two that lands a heavy hit, at range; but when you have a ship and 2-4 black dice with potentially a half dozen blue dice launched at you, then the evades do very little to defend the ship.

Defense tokens are limited. Use this to your advantage. Use squad commands to fire first to force them to consider using tokens against your bomber, or a potentially more deadly 4-red or stronger victory shot.

If you had less Bombers and more fighters you could just kill tycho, and kill all their squads, then use the rest to help you 2ish Bombers that have been freely shooting most of the game. You also save 15 points on chirpy and corruptor.

Well said Amanal.

Good luck with that. Objectives will be just as important and their hold on the game will diminish almost zilch. I have scored 10 tokens in SupPos in a tourney, that's almost enough to get a 10-0 alone. Honestly, I only see 400 pts helping to balance out lists to have more ship types. So now you'll be able to comfortable trade a corvette for a 150 point swing in points via objectives and te like. We'll see how much the MoV changes with 400...that'll be the biggest impact.

A lot of people's complaint about squadrons is that the main game centers around ships: so if you buy squads you aren't buying ships they are "wasting" points. This leads them to buy Bombers to act in the ship game, ironically wasting the points if their oppown t takes any actual fighters. Basically, you have way too many Bombers. The most, at 300, I would argue is 2: Rhymer and a generic. Then you can fill with some advances if you want. I prefer balanced fighter buolds to give options myself.

Objectives become less important at higher points? Odd cuz your podcast guys claimed the opposite. I'm ambivalent, I just know the game will only get exponentially better at 400 pts.

I do kind of agree on the futile feeling of wave 1 with 300 points limit when we know its going to 400 and adding a ton of new options. Thougj I feel the knowledge of the game is completely divorced from points values and such...learning how to employ tactics and manuevers to your play will help at 3, 4 or 9 hundred poont games.

This. Armada is so well balanced it's insane imo. It'll only get better at 400pts with wave 2.

Perhaps my tendency to not dwell too much on what others are doing is translating into a strength in Armada...most other games it punishes me: namely X-Wing. However, your point of trying to mess up second player due to your movements as first doesn't seem to translate to my games or how I play. Interesting to consider imo. I do agree of the dangers of Contested Outpost for player 2. My tournament game that had it let me delete a victory before the other even had a chance to engage. This particular objective really complicates player 2's defense due to allowing player 1 to focus his power on one flank or the other, and ships being less responsive to turning and engaging that flank without banging into each other...at least for imperials. I'm also curious how much investment you put into squadrons. The distances involved mean that it's hard for you to psych up an engagement when it's trivial for imps to push squadrons directly into your formation on turn two with a squad command. This often ties my hands on forcing me to squad command on my ship(s) turn 2 to get a favorable position during that turn and turn 3.

Except after you have moved, he is like the first player to the rest of our ships. I like that we can debate this topic until some place hot freezes over. If we ever had a concensus on going first it would mean it some how matters. What they didn't show that had the Corvette gone first or second some one was in trouble. I see where you're coming from: I just disagree. Certain objectives completely put the ball in player 2's court. Contested Outpost, for example, forces player 1 to come to a certain spot and engage player 2 as they see fit. Superior Positions let's player 2 completely counter player 1's setup and get ready to fight him exactly how he wishes. Dangerous Territory...you get the picture, I'm sure. The advantage of player 1 is simply acting first each round...which is massive in a "shoot, then move" game with alternating turns. However, let's not fool ourselves into thinking player 1 controls the game...cuz they simply don't. Most examples show the opposite imo. I don't see a single VSD ever taking on 6 CR90's ~_^ I don't think that the ability to debate this constantly means that it does not matter. I think that they share equal importance and affect how one builds their list and plays the game. Take me for instance, I play better when I am first player. I have yet to see Contested Outpost net a gain though. You limit yourself to a geographical location on the board and then within 2 to 3 turns you limit yourself in a direction. Then you are there getting 2 to 3 tokens at best. . . Those are just my experiences though. Superior Positions is so much fun! I love having everything set up and not caring what they do. I am still making them react solely to my deployment. Same with Fleet Ambush. I would highly recommend you listen to Intensify Forward Firepower episode 7. Interesting...as I built my list, with no internet feedback, to do exactly what you're claiming with the understanding that at 298/299/300 points I'd rarely get bid and likely go second...of course now we know it's likely i'll go first since people are bidding for second now. My intention is to run my list with as many options as possible and use my skill to win all my games: divorcing myself from first player, second player, certain other lists not countering mine, etc. So we seem to be coming to the similar conclusions: do what I want and use my skill, yet I don't see first/second player being a big contributing factor to this.

Not bad. I used to use my Vic-1 as a carrier...though I dropped Flight Controllers for Gunnery Team to pull some of my investment out of requiring the enemy to field fighters. With Gunnery Team I can drop that extra die from Flight Controllers out of my ship..which is pretty useful when countering named pilots (can't brace away a single damage). In fighter-light-opponent games I can hope to double-tap with my Vic-1 front arc. More testing is needed Looking forward to Wave 2 to give is more squad options though. ISDs will make stellar carriers.

I see where you're coming from: I just disagree. Certain objectives completely put the ball in player 2's court. Contested Outpost, for example, forces player 1 to come to a certain spot and engage player 2 as they see fit. Superior Positions let's player 2 completely counter player 1's setup and get ready to fight him exactly how he wishes. Dangerous Territory...you get the picture, I'm sure. The advantage of player 1 is simply acting first each round...which is massive in a "shoot, then move" game with alternating turns. However, let's not fool ourselves into thinking player 1 controls the game...cuz they simply don't. Most examples show the opposite imo.

I'd mirror this point. Too many people put too much stock in their list...it's how you fly it that matters. In armada your list is kind of irrelevant imo as long as you have some basic points covered. I'd further agree that the limited lists is just a problem from a boringness standpoint. Everyone running the same list is just boring...it doesn't make the list weaker really, as someone might play completely differently and mess up your plan for the "standard list". This is also why it's hard to talk list tactics as so much relies on setup and objectives that you can't really plan anything. Wave 2 will be an amazing expansion of options so that we see more variety, not for power but for more fun playing different lists.

My issue...or at least a curious point...is they expect bidding for first player since its strong. Yet the dialogue lately has been bidding to ensure second player with your objectives getting played. Very curious point indeed. Just how good is second with objectives? Looks like a good place to spent time experimenting and discussing.