I'd like to hear a list that fits that. I listed the squadron-dice you'd be facing against mine. It's enough to pop your MC30 before it shoots with decent rolls. The scarriest part is the 3 bigger ships with tons of red dice. However, I'll have a Demonlisher and Raider that can very easily get in your front arcs while you try to get my VSD into your sides. Not to mention the dilema of my missions if you go first. As Wes stated: this game is pretty much about the player not the list. I'm of the opinion that squadron-less builds will get shreded hard in Wave 2, however. This basically shows us what wave 2 is likely to look like: 3-4 ships kitted with some toys and squadron support. I don't forsee 5-6 naked ship lists performing well. The rather high costs of large ships helped immensely to keep the ship count down to 3-4 imo. Sure we'll see people squeezing in lots of small ships, but decent squadron wings will throw enough dice to essentially kill one of these small ships per turn with good rolls. Back that with pot shots from other ships and you needn't worry about small flankers wrecking your day when you can just drop a few firesprays on their head and melt them.

Agreed PewPewPew. I'm one that fully expects an SSD in Armada: essentially it'll be the same thing as the corvette/raider in X-Wing. With that it'll have about 6 arcs, 2 per side and front/back. Plus the Golan; though that's less likely as it would require a non-standard play method or very special rules to run it. So not sure how much development time they'll invest on that. Perhaps if one of the movies has a particularly massive storyline involving a station assault they'll tie it in.

Don't doubt this might happen to add options. If nothing else; a mission-related station or orbital platform with 6 hull zones and arcs that can only rotate in place? That'd be cool.

Again with the squadron-less build. If you want a direct counter: that's supremely easy. 134 points of bombers backed by rhymer will decimate you. Add in some Rogue squadrons like Firesprays and/or Boba then you'll have a nightmare to deal with. I can gun for your big ships with all mine, and my squadron-ball will melt your MC30 if it gets anywhere near me. You'll have a better chance against all-comer lists...but not much. MC30 still doesn't stand much chance against Rhymer, a Bomber, Fett, and Dengar backed by 6 superioirty fighters with nothing better to do: that's 3 black 1 blue dice with bomber and 1 black 6 blue without.

People that try to bring the all-ship-no-squadron meta over from wave 1 will, very rapidly, run into some huge upsets. Rogues will burn down your ships rather quick and deliver heavy damage to arcs you don't want hit very reliably. I don't really see lists with over 4 ships working out particularly well in the long run in Wave 2.

I do worry a little at increasing deadly-ness of long range. Really making the promise of black dice less rewarding. Time will tell, however.

Reading poorly imo...wave 2 will kill all-ship lists. I'm pretty certain of that. The rogue keyword alone ensures this. People taking no squads will get hurt hard by fire sprays and YT-2400s and eventually start taking at least minimal fighter screens fairly rapidly.

Wave 2 is, essentially, the same as Wave 1 for the core set. Core was garbage. Wave 1 gave more options and made the game feel more like a game; however, it was/is still missing a lot of things. Wave 2 basiaclly "completes" the game. It gives the full range of options to both factions and the entire game functions like a well-oiled machine now. As people have said: the game is done and everything after is just gravy.

I keep getting Mark II ship cards when I pretty much use only Mark I ships...kind of annoying

Meh, you'll get the ships in a month or two. So why not sell them for 50-100% their value? I kinda hope vassal get's Wave2 updates ASAP...though I have a feeling we'll have to wait for official release or being able to play Armada Wave 2 before it's released like that could cause problems :\

The info is. Some have the actual products.

Wave 2 is simply: amazing. It fixes all the arguments that people would level at the game: squadrons' percieved inneffectiveness, list diversity, objectives' relevance, etc. I'd be impressed to see people making lists with anymore than 4 ships in them. If they did I would wager a few games against rogue-empowered squadrons will show them it's not really a great idea.

The card says "Modification" in italics. The builders don't seem to denote these cards; though Nanotanks' builder keeps you from using mulitiples just like named people.

I kept wondering why I could put a tractor beam on certain ships, haha. Thanks Nanotanks for keeping me straight!

I like that Fab had his generator up nice and early...I've just always had a lot of issues working with it: if it's idle for a time it restricts you from further editing; tt's a tad cumbersome, etc. Nantanks @ http://nanotanks.pythonanywhere.com/Seems to pull through a tad better. Though I think Fab's fleet list generator after you've made it is nicer/cleaner. That said; as I said in a previous thread: Squadron's seem to have been designed, from the ground up, with Wave 2 in mind. The "shortcomings" of squadrons in Wave 1 look to be utterly, and completely, dashed when you consider Wave 2. Rogue's alone will get people to invest in squadrons. The ability to add extra useful dice into your list that are able to activate after all your ships and take advantage of depleted shields and objectives with impunity is something that even the "it's easier to play all ship lists" people will likely add to their fleet. The interesting thing that follows? The most effective way to counter Rogue's is squadrons. Sure some ships can fairly effectively harm the little buggers, but mostly people who run all-ship lists are going to encounter 2-4 YT-2400 or Firesprays. That are pretty dangerous, tough, and agile. These ships will harm people to the point that they feel the need to bring at least a few fighters to tie them up. This leads to more and more interest and investment in the squadron game. Consider 3 Firespray's give you six blue dice to bombard ships with that have 75% hit chance each, 25% of which is critical effect with bomber enabled. Also factor in that these are 3 seperate attacks that go AFTER every other "real" attack. Is that worth a gladiator activation for about the same points cost? Not to mention they are almost tougher than a gladiator at this point. Definiently going to see squadrons with Wave 2. They won't then (and don't now) need any help or change.

Here's one about objectives: I ran Precision Strike at the Sullust tournament and it didn't do that much for me when it was picked. You kind of have to sacrafice a bit to get the points if they aren't just incidental. So: Assault Proton Torpedoes on your Glads/Raiders with Screed gurantee 15points a shot and a lovely face-up card. Of course, if the oppoenent runs a similar list, it won't help you as much.

Haha...I didn't even consider it paired with Intel Officer. That's evil. 4 red dice can roll quite a bit of damage; so forcing them to drain a ton of shields or lose the brace token on the first exchange of fire is pretty wicked.

Interesting, that: is fewer kitted out ships better or many naked ships better? Squadrons or no? There's extremely valid arguments for every way of looking at the game...even more than I thought there would be in Wave 1. My experience with the builders leads me to think that fleets will be hard pressed to press past 4/5 ships without major exploitable sacrafices and/or gimmicky play. The insane cost of Large ships will limit the majority of fleets flying around.

Victory and Imperial Star Destroyers seem like one of the best platforms for Slaved Turrets...though I seriously am digging Heavy Turbolaser Turrets a LOT.

FGD's bold is pretty much how I stand. I've stated before: that I'm fine with my VSD1 not firing its black dice once in a game if the area denial forced my opponent to avoid it and get killed via the rest of my fleet. It indirectly effected the game; and, thus, was worth the points. Riekann will be that general analog more than any; especially, as people have said, if it deters gladiator (and MC30) dives.

Makes me wonder if larger ships will find a use for those cards that convert "something" to an accuracy? No brace for you Mr Sienfield. I think that's an interesting point, and made me realise something that probably should have been obvious: FFG must have had at least as far as this wave planned out since before the release of the main game. I wonder what else will start to make more sense now that we're playing the game as intended (I'm inclined to say fighters, but they've always made sense to me). Bold Mine: This is exactly what I see. Look how each design convention seems to line up in different areas of each faction: medium, slow, powerhouse slugger on imperial side. Big, slow, powerhouse slugger on the rebel side. The AFKMK11 is the faster, but smaller warship while the ISD is the bigger, but faster warship. Look at how it is only Imperials that can get evade on their Large ship, when Rebels specialize in evade and the synergy with Turbolaser Reroute Circuits. Especially when you look at squadrons does this jump down your throat: Rogues and the relative power of the "tiny ships". Take Boba or Han for example, each ship costs half-ish of the brawler ship for each faction, while giving you the firepower, against ships, of one of their meh arcs, but it counters that with unparalleled manueverability and a special ability that helps boost its powerlevel. That is to say: they can pop in behind a ship that's been redirecting shields and hammer an unshielded zone without the opponent being able to react with their ships, and defense tokens have been spent on the "big" attacks. So they end up with more hard choices; like burn my redirect or brace or take a faceup damage card and change? This alone will cause, I feel, even the most stringent anti-squadron/all-ship players to considered a rogue or two...and this will push people to realize that pot-shotting these neuscances while they are free to unload on your ships wherever they please can't stand: enter the fighter screen to tie(heh) them down. Then you get the types of fighter screens/battles that are intended in the game since most people will likely wish to tie up rogues OR invest well into upgrades or ship types that allow them overwhelming firepower to down those pesky rogue pilots.

Funny. I see the opposite. Rogues alone will make most of the people who were anti-squadron in wave 1 take up the round-base-banner. Every complaint about squadrons is addressed by the medium squadrons: move and shoot without a command. The ironic result? The most effective way to counter these ships is squadrons...tada, now everyone budgets squadrons! This could nearly explain FFGs utter non-chalance on the worries of squadrons: knowing that the rogues would give enough power (almost the firepower power of a corvette with huge boons on top of that) into the realm of squads that would essentially require people to budget points to deal with them. As for ships...I have a retardedly powerful, decked out victory 1 that costs the same as a naked ISD...so I actually feel that with large ships and the relative power of rogues and forcing more points funneled into the squadron game will drive the ship count down...or least just not up.

Silly argument, imo; however, i've been in your shoes, in Warhammer, Lyraeus (much easier to do since GW can't write rules 1/10 as well as FFG can). So i'm going to try to show you what you would like: actual rules that show this isn't doable. Of course, you're correct in that there isn't a rule that says you can't in deployment...as far as I can tell. Which, imo, is just an oversight in the realm of: "No one would ever think to deploy their ships on their ships." I feel we should give FFG the benefit of the doubt, since they rarely do this, compared to GW who do this about 30-times a rulebook. This admission, combined with ARR Page 8 under Overlapping, paragraph 2: "If a ship executes a maneuver and its final position would overlap another ship, it cannot finish its maneuver normally. Instead, temporarily reduce its speed by one (without changing the speed dial) and move the ship at the new speed. This process continues until the ship can finish it's maneuver, even if that maneuver is to remain in place at speed "0"..." As people have pointed out, this ultimately means you are in a recursive loop without end...OR you proceed from speed "0" to "-1". You claim that bullet 2 allows you to count as completing a maneuver at speed "0" if you don't move. Please tell me how you make it to that bullet? You can never get out of Paragraph 2's rule-loop if you're deployed already overlapping. It really is that simple. If you don't agree; please explain what process of rules allows you to escape the loop and get to bullet 2 in order to invoke the "non-standard maneuver" rule. However, I will agree that it's kinda silly that we have to find the rules for this in a later portion of the game. As for the idea of Minefields and obstacles: there is a huge difference here than with ships...you're allowed to be on an obstacle. Honestly, the obstacles should be utterly 2d, and a board with holographic versions would be ideal. That they have some form of Z-axis dimension is merely a hurdle of technology for the game and the best compromise to a digital play space.

As to the "which is more forgiving" aspect, I see it like this: If you miss-deploy badly in Armada, you essentially have lost the game or have a massive uphill battle. If you do the same in X-Wing you're fine; it just takes a few slow-roll early moves to make something useable. So this speaks to the "tactical" vs "strategic" arguments towards the games imo. My primary thing is that Armada is a game you can actually plan, play well, predict, and win due to your own abilities nearly every-single-game. X-Wing you cannot. It's a little more like Poker. The best players obviously end up at the high-tables consistently, but the bottom line is that you can play well and still lose a game of X-Wing solely due to dice (RNG). Armada doesn't really have that, sure you can have really really hot dice for attacks that help win, but it's no where near the influence on the game as joint red+green dice vs attack dice+defense tokens.

How many times were you shooting with engineering commands showing, though? Perhaps, too, the issue is that you have no squadron so you're out 1/4 of your options...which to me are superior to concfire in most situations when you actually think about the results.