AF MK I spoiler?

I was considering it for my Vic-1 at 400 too...helps with your Reds when blasting ships, let's you pick accuracies as needed to popping out double damages when wanted. That or XX-9s for maximum screed synergy...of course I was thinking that XI-7s would be very powerful too...drill those front arcs home! Take that Home One!

Optimal is as optimal does o_O

Nononononononono...this is exactly my point. If you see people running all-ship lists you DONT copy them. You punish them for being derpy: take Luke, maybe Keyan if you like Bs, and fill with a good ratio of Fighter-heavy and bomber-light. Shoot for ~75 of your squad points as being useful at dogfighting...less if your ships can support you well (yavaris and/or Ador). Having squads that can take our an entire ship alone if he's got no fighters is very strong against imps with their black dice. I agree this is the best base for imperial (I use it, so duh heh)...however I see a TON of people who just want to cram ALL THE DESTROYERS in. If you want to try to work out a game on vassal OP, let me know. You will, regardless of other imp tendicies, want to learn about Demolishers (Glad1/2, Demolisher, Wulff, Engine Techs, and Assault Conc Mussiles)...It's just too good for me not to run it, one of the fastest, and most maneuverable ships in the game while also hitting harder than almost all other ships, AND breaks one of the core mechanics that quintuples its powerlevel imo. What is vessel op? I'm pretty new at all this As you found: vassal is an online game system to practice new ships and builds...or get a game online if no people nearby are available. It might be clunkier and isn't as cool as pushing actual models around, but it's conveinent. Also X-Wing is at the point where when you're good at it it plays better than the table at times.

My first go at this was conservative with my VSD back in the corner facing laterally, quickly hard-turning into him, leaving me some space (not sure why I wanted it) to set up for a squad assault and 2nd/3rd turn demolisher raking. Rhymer/Bomber/Vader nearly killed his Neb outright on turn 2 heh. Super fun objective when you're rocking a Vic1 and brawling destroyer that can fully cross the board by turn 2 and broadside anything it wants with 5 blacks

Luck has no place in Armada, back to X-Wing with you heathen! If they have under 90 points in fighters they're having bad-wrong-fun...burn them at the stake imo. Lack of Aces is...troubling. The tokens alone are often worth having 1-2 just to draw some fire, esp with the beasts that are Luke and Wedge with escort. Standard imp list (as listed) should smash apart an all-ship imp list fairly readily...it's the pesky corvettes that give it problems, mostly due to lack of reliable 10-0 potential.

Hyper Assault lets him (potentially) drop a nebulon on the stern/flank of a big/slow ship. So why not? You thinking of Ambush? Solid-ish list. Not a ton of bells and whistles, but I feel Neb-Bs require a pair to function well, and it's hard to do AF and 2x Neb-Bs in 300 pts. Not sure if I like the Y's, but with the A's and decent AA fire from your ships you can clean up squads a little bit and hope to land a Y bomb or two.

Depends on your target, but ya: huge weakness. Better to slow him down and stock up on a concfire token turn 2 while limpy "speeds" along...or engineer an opponent that lets you have Hyperspace Assault as first player so you can punch him in the face turn 1 with black dice

Mainly their turn radius I would suspect..something the Demolisher excels at. What kinds of lists do you play against? I'm just curious who's not exploiting you with STDs TRDs

I've a half-played game on my table with my brother. It's a giant bore and PITA to play against, and I'd just be annoyed at a tournament due to a likely loss of my 10-0 vs these clowns...I'll have to figure out a way to catch the buggers effectively. The base size of the Large Ships is going to catch most people off guard. Those honking ships are going to be a nightmare to fly around a lot of the time, and even more so in groups. However, I do find it interesting that you can shoot a 2-dice arc through a ship and do a 1 dice attack...yet a big honking ISD shooting through another honking ISD loses barely any of its firepower. Of course, as you alude to, the range alone (unless you're kissing) will prob exclude their black dice. Either way, they're gunna hit ALL THE OBSTACLES! heh...ships too.

4 naked ISDs will be a thing...but they will suck

I agree this is the best base for imperial (I use it, so duh heh)...however I see a TON of people who just want to cram ALL THE DESTROYERS in. If you want to try to work out a game on vassal OP, let me know. You will, regardless of other imp tendicies, want to learn about Demolishers (Glad1/2, Demolisher, Wulff, Engine Techs, and Assault Conc Mussiles)...It's just too good for me not to run it, one of the fastest, and most maneuverable ships in the game while also hitting harder than almost all other ships, AND breaks one of the core mechanics that quintuples its powerlevel imo.

What I posted? A suggestion for the OP...I've no interest in trip glads...too little room for toys, and no massive anvil to push around and instill the fear of the emperor in people!

What FGD said. More than 2 bombers (Rhymer and a generic) is too much. You won't have a large enough investment in fighters to cover them. Take 1-2 advances to act as "sorta" bombers against fighter-light lists and fill out the rest with sexy fighters and interceptors. As for Flight Controllers...i Dropped them for Gunnery Team, as I can (possibly) assist with that extra 1 dice from my victory but also have the options of unloading more battery dice on ships if the opportunity arises. Of course, this may not be that great a tactic, or it could be. Just a thought

Corvette swarms are always bad People just like to play around with stuff that sounds interesting

This. However, I do know exactly how I'll build my 400pt competitive list: I'll take the one I have and just 100 points of awesome to it. I expect to see A LOT of 2-3 ISD lists out of imperial players. It's an extension of wave1 antics fueled by nerd-hysteria over the iconic ship. As such, I am designing my lowly Vic-I (the oldest imp destroyer) to be able to tango directly with big, honking, naked, warships. I'll toss on Expanded Launchers, giving it more firepower than a naked ISD (same dice, but no blues..so it hits harder but trades-off those accuracies which can be a drag); and If I have the points i'll boost it even more with Dominator, or Warlord/H9 combo, and/or XX-9's to capitalize on guaranteed crits. My 88pt demolisher won't change. My squads won't change, but i'll add ~20-30 points to them...likely via a powerful bounty hunter that is a good force-multiplyer to my list. The biggest addition will be a decked-out raider. I'm wagering that the base cost will be 42-45 points. One of them should have the Ion Cannon hardpoint, so I'm considering OLP on him. This gives me guaranteed token exhausting on my first activation due to screed (synergies make me happy). Combine that with my plethora of black dice and we have some fun ISD/MC-80 hunting goodness. My hang-up is the actual cost of the Raider. What upgrades it can take (We know for certain one gets ordnance, and it's likely the other get's Ion Cannons. Perhaps, since it's a brawler, both with get ordnance and one will have ion and one will have turbos like CR-90s? We can also assume they'll have a basic crew, and a support crew. I don't see any support crew being super great: engine techs are too expensive I feel for what they'll give an already fast and agile ship. I do think a very good addition would be an Intel Officer...if I'm already using him to exhaust tokens, if I can BURN a token (evade via my front arc shots) while he's defending against my first attack that's even better. Also, if Contain works against OLP, I will absolutely take Intel without question. That means i'm spending 8-15 points on the raider, plust a few more if there is a title that I really like. Plus the 13-30 points on my VSD, leaving me 10-20 points for squads? Going to get tight...and I'm still rocking only 3 ships when people are considering 5. So we'll see once points are spoiled and all the upgrade cards are.

I'll echo the squadron comments. People who run all-ship lists often lament that squadrons are wasted points since if the opponent, too, doesn't take squadrons they just fart around. This leads them to take tons of bombers, "so that they are effectively spent" points in the squadron section...yet, ironically enough, doing this ACTUALLY wastes the points you were trying to avoid wasting. A single interceptor-class fighter can lock down 71 of your squadron points...not good stituation to be in. Combine this with extremely powerful, and fast brawlers, those bombers are not a great use of points. Either go advance heavy with rhymer so you can pseudo-bomb against those all-ship lists, yet still engage fighter-heavy lists. Of course if you like playing paper and dont mind geting rolled by scissors at times then go bomber heavy As for the ships. I prefer Glad1s since I want my fighters to do the fighting, and since I run a single "cliche" demolisher, I pretty much always shoot both shots at a ship...so Glad2 is wasted points. However, if you roll along with rhymer and 4-6 advances as your squads (very reasonable imo), you might want 2 glad2s nearby to help against heavy-fighter lists so while you're dogfighting with advances, you can supplement they're meh offensive punch to win the fight and hopefully toss some bombs with the left over ships. I think non-engine tech naked glad's is suficient in this setup. (296 of 300 pts) Flagship: (88 pts) Gladiator II-Class Star Destroyer(62 pts) Admiral Screed (26 pts) Fleet Ship 1: (69 pts) Gladiator II-Class Star Destroyer(62 pts) Assault Concussion Missiles (7 pts) Fleet Ship 2: (63 pts) Gladiator I-Class Star Destroyer(56 pts) Assault Concussion Missiles (7 pts) Squadrons (76 of 99 pts): 1x Major Rhymer Tie Bomber Squadron (16 pts) 5x Tie Advanced Squadron (60 pts) Objectives:

You don't have enough dogfighters. Also you have Fel and no TIE/advanced...that's kind of a poor squad selection. You're better off with Mithel since you have Admiral Chirpy. You have only 78 points in fighters total, and you have 25 in bombers...so you're running pretty fighter light. I run 75points of fighters and 25 of bombers, and 1 of those fighters can act as a bomber if needed. You also have a semi-carrier without expanded hangars, or flight controllers. Also, the Engineering Team is illegal, I think someone pointed that out. Wulf Yularen on your Demolisher is amazing, and only costs 1 more point if you drop it to a Glad1...much better combo imo. As for the rest...if you're running Chiraneau, you should take Mauler Mithel, if you drop Chirpy you can keep Fel and buy yourself an advance with the Chirpy-cost (plus 5 points from illegal engy team). VicII - Screed - OLP - Expanded Hangars Glad1 - Demolisher - Wulff - Engine Techs - ACM Rhymer Bomber Fel Advance Howl TIE Fighters x2 Comes out to 299. If you want chirpy, drop Fel, the Advance and one fighter; take Mithel and a basic TIE interceptor. for 297 points. It's still thin by my standards, but Vic2's hurt your squadron values a lot of the time, hence I run Vic1s

Perhaps...again, this chat is all theory. Putting it into practice is the hard part. Though I do take issue with your last sentence...player skill is much more important in Armada than lists or dice imo. So I don't quite understand how you can claim his LIST has any particular chance of winning (And i'll semi-contradict myself in the next sentence). In fact, my stance would be the opposite: that he has a "non-balanced" list, so he's more likely to lose due to his list not having the proper options to play against another certain list. Ultimately, if you could define certain lists in Armada as: Paper, Rock, or Scissors; then sure, you can claim the list has X or Y chance. Yet, that is kind of my contention with non-squad lists are bomber-heavy lists, etc. If you run a balanced list, you DON'T play the lame Paper/Rock/Scissors game, instead you bring what I like to call: the wet sock. It can lose to anything and beat anything depending how you play. Some lists, I will grant, are inherently stronger than others. Yet, I feel, that this game is so well balanced, that if you're a skilled player you can basiaclly spend your points on anything as long as you have some basics covered and do well; and be able to beat any other list.

Except it lets me know where to engage, flank, and decimate MY opponent. I'm rocking tons of black dice and WANT you to set up in a way o can run into you.

You committed the cardinal sin of wasting points in squads...you invested way too many points in Bombers and can not hope to defend you investment with your crappy dogfighting powers. I'd drop the Bs and take two As and 1 xwing. Otherwise, yes drop fleet ambush. Take fire lanes or hyperspace assault. Also, they are TIE/ln (Ln for line fighter)

1- that's the intrinsic value of first player in this system; the cr-90 example. That's why second player is favored heavily in objectives. Also, there's a lot more going on in a large ship list. If I can kill those last few ships before they activate then you lose that advantage. 2- some do. The most obvious are most wanted and superior positions...though SupPos is better with a squad heavy list by far 3- fighters that aren't engaged can do massive damage, and it'll often take a while to kill them with AA fire. Tying them up with your squads is simply the best option by a long shot. 4- you'd have to get you ships near the enemy ships since the squads aren't gunna go way far from their own ships...so that's really not practice either.

This is funny, as objectives were added to mitigate the drawbacks of going second...yet they seem to have created a world where everyone wants their objectives picked, so you go max points to go first now.

Glad2s are kind of a waste on demolishers...you're rarely going to shoot anything but a ship, long range front arc as your first shot into a saddled up broadside, and from then in you should fin yourself without 2 shots to make with that much flexibility. I'm on the fence for your squads, looks solid, but I feel more investment into using them against all-ship lists is important. This is the reason I never see myself taking Fel...he's useless unless you're dogfighting. If, however, you had rhymer...those advances could bomb nicely when they aren't needed. Then again I can't see a lot of wiggle room for taking out anti-fighter squads as its getting to the low end of killing power.

Interesting...that does, indeed, look scary. Objectives and final points? Of course, my issue is that I need raider and bounty hunter details to know what i'll have to counter you at 400 points. That's another thing i've noticed: people like to build scary lists and don't even bother adding objectives...objectives are utterly paramount to how you play: as is your bid idea. I run with 1-2 points bid at most..as I want to be good enough to roll with first or second player. However, I stack up my objectives to compliment my list. Of course you can big high and tailor to your own objectives to an absurd degree, but if someone is crazier than you and bids more you're up the creek potentially. On the topic of ship spam lists, I will ask two leading questions that begin to hint at my personal experience with this: 1 - Is there a level of numerical advantage at which having more ships becomes better? As in, do 4v3 and 5v3 and 6v3 all produce the same dynamic, or is there some kind of break point thanks to the nature of an alternating activation system between players where outnumbering snowballs? 2 - Are there certain characteristics ships might have that make them a better bet to take in an all-ship list, even accepting sometimes you might run into bomber lists or some such? 1 - Interesting point. It harkens back to the idea of concentrate fire and divide and conquer. Represents the concept very well, though it's long and rambly...the gist is that if you have a large advantage on your opponent your can win by exponentially larger margins that the raw numbers would suggest. If I go up against a 4 ship list now, with my two, it's a LOT more painful to me to lose a ship..that's half my ships! Only a quarter of yours. The problem is double arcs and gunnery teams, and staggered activation. The the above is more of an issue in TURN based wargames; but here even if you, like Lyraeus just mentioned, have 3 activations after i'm done...my two activations BEFORE your three uncontested ones might actually not happen if I kill you. So, there are upgrades to make smaller forces more powerful even against large enemies. For example, my plan for my VSD-1 at 400 points is going to be set up in such a way that i'm confident it can tango toe-to-toe with 2 "more or less" naked ISDs...upgrades in Armada are THAT powerful for a fraction of the cost of a new ship. 2 - So far, I don't personally think so. Even the 2-dice AA ships aren't sufficient to actually "deal with" fighters, they should be considered supplemental. If you have a nebulon B escort, you might justify spending half the points on fighters you normally would which can net you an extra CR-90 in your list or some killer upgrades for a bigger ship. The only point I see this happening, as if they add "lancer-frigate" like ships..which supposedly the Imp Raider is supposed to be. I would, honestly, consider an Imp list that ran 2-3 raiders as their anti-squadron defense AND bombers/line ships as more viable than most all-ship lists today, but I'm still not convinced since enemy squads would still be free to shoot at you till you finally kill them. So you'll need SOME fighters to tie them up to not shoot you, and if you go half-assed on squadrons you're more-often-than not throwing points away for ZERO gain. Which means you should invest MORE into squadrons to make them not useless, which again leads us back to a balanced fighter wing that I run. Cyclical feedback loop that essentially points out, to me at least, that no-squadron lists are doomed to not be as good. Of course they can roll up against a scissor and smash it to pieces and seem amazing...so there's that.