I find that the "take all ships and spam engineering commands" tactic from the beloved VGGG list isn't godly as people claim. Feels like it's the idea of the good performance most of the time vs great performance when you play well and bad if you mess up trope. Interesting AAR, and it's always good to see how things play out. Of course, I feel the Imp player really really screwed up jumping his VSD way out in BFE based on that picture: however, it's hard to have solid opinions on things when you don't see a whole game play out as everything is so woven together you need 100% context to make real judgments on what's good or not.

I just find it funny that people find it surprising

I like to fly a "typical" imperial fighter wing: 2 TIEs Howl 2 Interceptors Rhymer Bomber Vader I have run 3 ties and regular advance...but vader is really nice for 3 full-use black die chuckers. This allows me to bomb, picket, engage-to-win, and toss lots of dice against all-ship lists. Though in an all-ship meta I have considered 4 advances and 4 Bombers with 1 as the ace.

alby1: I'm guessing your asking about activation order? What the example illustrates is the best-possible-scenario for the Demolisher against the Yavaris w/buddies. He's assuming he has first player and more activations than the rebel player. Again, this is why some of us are not thrilled with these examples; as the context is pretty much useless since you need an entire game to really comment on real-world applications.

I have to test it, but i think it can. It's funny, cuz I am with Darth on the whole "table them" mentality. I also like to wrack up more points through objectives. I also think people underestimate the power of squad dice, as you claim, simply, that ships put out more DPT. I don't really Agree here. The game is brutal once you engage, so I do feel people underestimate how much damage loads of squads can do in a short time. As to having to spend points to use squad commands: well ya, that's the point. You have spent points on them, so they are still useful. Can you think of situations where it'd be useful to use a "coordinate fire" command that allowed you to order another ship to fire now instead of later? I sure can. As for Vassal games, I'll let you know if I can play tonight...going out of town tomorrow till Thursday, so I might be busy and then I'll bemgone till Friday :/ def up for some games when I'm back!

My only problem with squadron spam is the real-world-cost of doing it. It helps that I prefer multiple options and varying stuff.

Looks awesome. I'm tempted to paint some of my stuff (squadrons for instance)..just so lazy. I really want to redo some engines, esp my GSD: his engine paint-job is horrendous.

Bold mine This is my reasoning behind the balanced approach. The idea that you NEED a fighter screen to protect your bombers; but only against a list with fighters. So if you take your 5 Superiority fighters and 2 bombers against a list with no squadrons, you're using 5 sub-par squads. So yes, the all-ship list is going to have an advantage out-of-the-gate against you. This, I guess, is the crux of the argument with squadrons. If all-ship lists don't have to worry about bomber-heavy lists (which are theoretically a hard-ish counter to them) since they aren't likely to see them in a tourney since anyone with a few fighters will shut-them down; then why not take all-ships? There's effectively no downside, perhaps? If flown well. My guess, then, is that the best squadron load-out is hybrid fighter/bombers (TIE/adv, B-Wings, A-Wings, even X-Wings) that can not die to a screen, and hold off even dedicated superiority lists; but also can lay out 8+ red/black dice against all-ship lists. This is my reasoning behind 4adv 4bomber list (vader/rhymer as one each) as a "competitive" list with squadrons. To give me the most power I can muster VS all-ship lists and still be able to screen my bombers against superiority lists. Still need some games to test...it's pretty fruitless to test alone, as one person making all the choices can skew things greatly one-way-or-the-other.

Well, if you're blasting full-speed ahead, that makes me think I'll have an even better chance with Hyperspace Assault. I can jump my demolisher to speed 3 on turn 2-3 past your line, as you're driving right at me, and my 2-speed Vic can jump out (hopefully) fairly close to your Vic's flank. You'll now have to spend time turning around while I unload on the slower vic/any stragglers? Mind you, this is theory, though due to "momentum" on ships it's not completely out of my ass. You're also probably better at flying than me, so it'd be a challenge for sure. I agree with wanting to play with the models (my favorite part of x-wing/armada, star wars ships are the best sci-fi ships of all time), but i like the actual game so much I don't mind slumming it iwth 2d representations on the interwebs and the only access to a varied pool of players...that apparently could give me some challenge over my local selection :\

This is curious whenever I hear it...as people seem to keep assuming squadron commands are never worth taking: when I've already pointed out they are often better than ConcFire commands (depending on ships of course, still only very few).

The real question is, how there is so little resources in general when they have an entire galaxy.

God...what abominations, I hate pretty much everything from Rebels; which is strange since McQuarries art is phenomenal, but their take on it in the show is abysmal.

I love how much amaze-sauce X-Wing and Armada are going to be getting over the next 3-6 years. Utterly perfect timing for these games to coast along on constant refreshing of ideas and constant renewals of interest. Great time to be a Star Wars fan (especially with Disney and FFG shunning the hell outa prequel-erra garbage ).

Funny that we agree 100% on this one Lyraeus I think, too, it's telling to how people like to approach miniature games/wargames/etc in modern times.

True, and I would love to play some games against him. I'm wondering, however, what objectives are good to turn against him. I believe he stated he will avoid any objectives that award points, and because of that; and me running Prec. Strike and Sup. Pos.; we're likely to see a yellow mission. Fleet ambush might actually be favorable to him. Hyperspace assault might actually be a heavy counter to his list, as It's possible to drop my largest ship behind his victory and pound it flat while he weather fire from squadrons for 2-3 turns. The fun one could be Contested Outpost. This would leave 3 different scoring objectives to choose from, though with Outpost it might force his hand in directing his ships such that squadrons can do a more effective job of firing and laying down withering fire while all the ship duke it out over the points: though he has a lot of options to out-score most 2 ship lists via command. Bottom line: we need more Vassal games!!

to hear of it, X-wing was, during waves 1-3, actually named Tie Fighter miniatures FFG's learned a lot since then, though (no green dice here!) X-wing mini had far fewer options at wave 1's release. We may only have 5 ships total, but the objectives, commanders, and (apparently not) squadrons add tons of variety. Haha...Imps have it very limited in Armada: two ships with fairly limited upgrades to customize things...but seriously, they have a utopia of options compared to TIE fighters...or TIE fighters...or other TIE fighters. Though a full battle is missing, it is still a very likely scenario. Perhaps, but I agree with FGD: consider that you can show this exact video/situation and I can very easily argue that "yes, that just happened, but I still win the game and I'm glad I forced you to kill my Neb in this way because I wanted you to" So, it's an interesting data point, sure; but it's not really that important to even note imo.

The "none, few, many" distinction is misleading and lacking info at best, useless and retarded at worst. I've already touched on this numerous times. Squadrons are not squadrons...fighters and bombers are so important to your squadron loadout that to say "squadrons" alone is simply meaningless. The issue is all-bomber lists have a decided advantage against all-ship lists; but if they see a list with ANY fighter support it instantly losses ~1/3 of its ability to fight. Hence you throttle back bombers to add superiority fighters. Any list with ALL fighters, is at a decided disadvantage against most lists...only mirror lists it ties with. The idea is to either: A.) use a split of bombers and superiority fighters. My opinion is 1/4 of your squad points, at most, on bombers, rest on fighters. B.) spam one squadron that does it all: A-Wings, B-Wings, or TIE/adv. C.) all ships...I still feel this is still at a disadvantage to any list with decent squad-batteries. Though it might trump balanced lists and force black-dice-non-bomber spam like As and TIE/advs.

Mxlm beat me. You could, however, argue that cont outpost is good since you can sit in the station and know the shipsll be in range to bomb and you don't have to worry about obstructed shots: better with rhymer.

I can't watch it atm, Lyraeus, but I'll look later: however, just like the vassal example posted recently: this is pretty hard to care about. It's not in a proper context (full list, obstacles, objectives, etc) to really take seriously. Another interesting note: what did xwing first look like? It had even fewer options if you think about it. Wave 2 will be a massive boon to the game for sure.

I agree that this fairly flawed. You have to deal with: a list, on a board, with obstacles, and objectives; there's simply no other way to evaluate the power of anything without a full game, in Armada.

Nice write up. Especially love the signed card...that's just awesome: Love Stackpoles books.

I have a list with Vessery and a Scimitar for the TL. I was using Fel/Jax as my third, but decided to try some TIEs. Pulled out Curse and Backstabber...as people have said. People almost never shoot at curse, so he's great To push down their throat with the bomber. I kind of want to free up a point, but BS is really nice as a 3-4 dice cheapo. I was considering night beast as I really like the idea of him: perhaps dive right in with next to curse with focus/evades. I have outmaneuver on vessy.../so I like double flank threats, the TIE being much less threatening. Can't wait to see the new TIEs.

I like what Tranenturm said about comparing ACMs to Bombers...it is pretty silly to do this: you have to buy a ship first, and again (as I keep saying) squadrons are more agile than ships. I think objectives are also important. I'm curious what peoples' opinions are on some of them: let's say I had Precisions Strike, Fleet Ambush, and Superior Positions? Based on said tourney winner he'd pick Ambush, so his Vic and 1 glad is already in my face (where I want them to be. So for turn 1 and 2 It's my 300 points against his 200ish. That something that the 4-ship person would want? I did a few quick tests on vassal, and yes: actually the ship list seems to be tough to counter in this situation, but it was mostly due to him getting in closer, sooner, and gettting black dice in my face. I'm thinking Ambush would be bad, in this situation, due to wanting my squads to engage first while he slogs to me...so perhaps Hyperspace Assault would work better. Even reserving my Victory and trying to bring him behind my opponents on turn 3 while my fast demolisher slow-rolls turn 1/2 and then jumps to speed 3 past his line on 2 or 3 while he's pelted by black dice at rhymer range? I'd love to get another person on vassal to test, as it's really meh to test alone As to an earlier comment on "simply thinking squadrons are at a dissadvantage" that's funny as I see it the opposite. But I guess testing is the best way to find out. 4ships with ACM and black dice against 2 ships with 8-12 black dice would be nice to figure out. Of course, I admit running 5 blue dice and 3 black is poor choice for me, but that's the idea of opportunity cost in that if anyone brings a few interceptors of some sort my bombers are useless so i'd want fighters: hence the drive to "balanced" squadrons. Of course, first you need to be able to handle all-ship lists that seem to have numberous advantages.

Overlapping gives the objective to the OTHER person iirc. Would be too easy to score otherwise.

Agreed FGD. I also, see that the top-players focusing on reds as an issue for the current leaning towards all-ship fests. I could be wrong, but I don't think that the picture of the winner (I think that was him on his 2nd or 3rd to last game?) had a red card sitting pretty on the table. Yellow/Blue are the ones that change the entire aspect of the game from shoot-em-ups to tactical concerns. Be nice to hear about the objective selections overall though. Even the reds force the game, as FGD comments: like most wanted is absolutely favoring multi-ship lists over fewer balanced ship lists. While things like SupPos favor squadron heavy lists, for example.