Lots of good ideas in this thread. And no one really getting too angry. Is this even the internet anymore?

Again I would argue against the idea that imps do it "better" than the rebels. See my analysis above, its a 5 point difference for a ton more flexibility and resilience. If anything, making relay a 1nc per turn thing hurts the rebels waaaaay more as the single relay VCX is literally designed from the ground up to scale way up in value the more activations you have and rebels currently have the cheapest activations in the game. I had a guy in the CC campaign use a corvette swarm with a VCX, any corvette not in combat range threw squads and using the VCX relay those stupid corvettes activated his squadrons like if he had a carrier right in the mix rather than a bunch of corvettes on a long-arc flank run. Crazy!

I'm telling you, make relay only work 1 time per turn and problem solved. It's a fairly game-breaking ability as it is, part of the inherent limitation of squadrons was supposed to be the fact that you had to keep something in medium range to make the most use of them. The original game design *recognized* how powerful they could be. Think about having to have enough ships in medium range to activate the squads and spending a dial which is an extremely finite resource in the pre-flotilla world. Think about how powerful rogue was for a while (with all its high cost and limitations) in fact the high cost of rogue is proof positive of this. Then we got Boosted coms which also has a cost to simply allow you the rest of the ruler and now relay comes along with flotillas and all of those costs mean much much less. With even 1 VCX and assuming 4 activations you can activate at least 4 squadrons from anywhere on the board where those activations would have come at a strategic and points cost in the past (naturally this is crap efficiency, add a second VCX and efficiency/flexibility = through the roof). Reeikan isn't the problem and he shouldn't be nerfed, he is just part of the problem and it has to be looked at from the point of view of synergies and how nerfing him affects the game as a whole, not just 1 archetype.

Pretty sure the TO metta "Galant Hell" has 2 relay squads, unless it changed in the short interim, but I doubt it. As for relay efficiency, sure, until you realize that rebels have cheaper ways to ACTIVATE those squadrons. Also, 2 meaty relay sources while more expensive, are also nearly impossible to kill when well played. for comparisons sake, the rebels pay FIVE more points to activate 4 total squadrons via relay. For these 5 points they get TEN more squad hitpoints, an extra squad base, the extra firepower from the squad, the extra survivability of not losing their entire relay from 1 squad getting killed...need I go on?? I played a game the other day where part of my strategy hinged on using a shuttle relay, my opponent was smart enough to send 3 A wings after it and after 1 round of average rolling I no longer had relay, vs the same element in the rebel fleet he wouldn't have even killed half my relay....

Ok so none of you actually hit on the real game changer here. I will share this from what I heard while at a recent tournament where Norm was playing Yik, you might recognize those names from having WON the **** worlds and having placed quite high. The real game changer is relay. Period. Right from the horses mouth ok? You have a pair of squadrons that are very hard to kill, that can be escorted by biggs and allow Yavaris' very powerful ability to have scary threat range AND leverage the transports ability to activate while remaining safe. Reeikan is just a super annoying insurance policy that allows the player to decide if he wants to play defensively or offensively. The amount of flexibility and survivability this combination provides is downright scary. Yavaris + gallant haven + relay + Reeikan is currently OP. Everyone knows this. Norm himself is an extremely good, meticulous, intelligent player and he primarily plays imperial but he literally could not find an imperial counter to this OP combo (from what I heard him say) edit: not one that would counter it and work vs other lists. You want to nerf this combo without changing much all you have to do is make relay only work once per relay provider per turn. All of a sudden the fighter ball loses a tremendous amount of efficiency, the transports either have to come into harms way or become nothing more than activations. And the list becomes less godlike. Alternately and in the meantime, either play this list (stale, boring meta, thanks) or just bring a pile of snipe and AS and focus the living hell out of the relay squads (with their TON of health :/ )

So, being generally disappointed AND inspired by the CC I have started designing a campaign that hybridizes Armada and Rebellion components to make a game of grand space navy strategy . Part of this design will be smaller "task forces" and sometimes even garrison fleets. When these smaller, often asymmetrical combats are activated these small force actions will be commanded by generic commanders (well below the notice of an Admiral of Rank). So here I am looking for input on what these commanders should look like/cost. Some ideas I had were to take little-used officer upgrades, double their cost and make them fleet-wide effects (think fleet-wide wing-commander @ 12 points) which wouldn't be too unbalanced as these would only be used in small (sub 300 pt) combats on a 3x3, but I am open to ideas. Limitations are: -Has to have a generic name -Has to cost less than 20 points -Has to have reasonable value considering the small fleet size For example: Defensive Garrison Commander - 10 pts When a friendly ship activates exhaust this card to ready a defense token Simple, not too janky, and thematic. Hit and run Raiding Detachment Commander - 12 pts Your fleet can enter hyperspace on turn 2 as well as the normal window (in my campaign module shipyard locations matter, if you are cut off from repairs damage regenerates slowly after battles including shields so a detachment of corvettes plinking down an ISDs shields then running away is a valid strategy) Anyway, I thought I would open it up to the community because there are bound to be better ideas than I would never come up with out there! Once (if I ever) finish the module I will share it openly for testing.

I did a Decked out interdictor with 3 goz (2 with BC, sometimes all 3) and a right swarm of tie bombers with very little AS protection. It either worked or fell to pieces. The idea was to slow down and run away from MSUs while the rhymerball/reroll ball did the work OR out-rhymerball the rhymerballs (while running away). I ran this JUST as the metta was shifting away from MSUs and Rhymerballs and towards rhymerball shredder lists and flotilla hunters and I got my *** handed to me after a limited amount of success, but MAN was it a ball of stanky jank

Yeah I think its rieekan. I hate that list. Mostly because no one can figure out a viable Imperial list that can beat it and do well generally. You can call it whatever you like but if it's flown by people that call it Gallant Hell and they are all in the top 8 as of day 1 they might just have naming rights

Well I can tell you the Canadian Contingents list Archetype. It's known as "Gallant Hell" because its hell to play against in the hands of an experienced player. Gallant haven, Yavaris, a pair of transports, 2 relay freighters and a balanced mix of squadrons

#1, 5, 6 are all representing Canada, specifically the Toronto group.

yes

Yes, well worth 55 points or so and I would gladly pay 61-62 for the red AS die. If it does nothing but sit back and activate a lot of squads and supports those same squads with red AS a good operator can absolutely dominate the squadron game with one of these. At the very least it gives imperials a medium-cost medium base list building option to push squads. Up till now we have had VSDs (which are fine) but if you absolutely only intend on bringing a VSD for squad activations and not as a gunship/carrier you were always losing out to Flots. Choice is good. If they make it even 70 points they done screwed up.

Yeah but then you gotta take Sato...another "good on paper" commander. If anything Long range OP, or a chance at it at least, improves Sato, not the other way around... But so you get 2 blue dice at long range on your OP ship, still not a high %'age chance to proc = niche Problem Problem with OP is that it is a janky, niche upgrade but it's priced like a game changer. At 5 points it would be almost palatable, at 4 it would be a solid contender in many a build.

Ergo Armada is dead QED -all forum arguments shall henceforth end thus. Thanks.

I think you underestimate how good FFG is at extracting our money. The REAL way to get maximum value with minimum investment is to make a new campaign pack called "Lothal Rebellion" or something that includes everything you need to make the quasar a rebel ship. You just made the campaign pack a must-buy for all rebel players who then will also buy a quasar. $$

I guess its possible, but it would mean the different faction versions would have different armaments if the cardboard insert is correct. I could swear it shows a red AS die which would make the Quasar a new beast in its own right.

Yes and no. From an emotional perspective one worries that they are stretched too thin and are unable to properly support games we love. But on the other hand, unless they have some criminally incompetent management, they should be able to scale resources to match workload. More games/IP being produced = more money = more staff to produce those games and support them. If they are simply working the same number of staff and stretching them thin in some stupid attempt at desperate, poorly planned money grabs then we would see things like support documents taking over a hundred da....uh.

I have had a lot of success with VSD1 and spinals, nothing else on it. People tend to underestimate the poor little slow, plodding VSD until they find themselves having to navigate into the close-range front or double arc to avoid a bigger perceived threat. In my first CC campaign I had the most kills with my VSD. My opponents would do somersaults to avoid demo and ISD and find themselves in front of the VSD all the time and that thing would wreck. Basically I just set Nav Nav CF CF CF CF. Bank a nav token, decide on a trajectory and just keep popping 5 reds until something reluctantly got into close range and got vapourized. Why SA instead of slaved? Often a pesky ship gets behind you, with the CF spam you are still throwing 4 reds from rear arc, also the art of the double arc, baby. the few points difference is not worth sacrificing the juicy double arc potential.

Looks like someone has volunteered himself to be the voice of the pitchfork and torches Armada player mob at FFG HQ that will form soon if no FAQ

Wouldn't it be nice if we got some G-D errata up in here? I ended up coming to the same conclusion regarding CC, its an interesting and basic framework but its primary value has been delivering a payload of new content. As a robust Campaign it is an abject failure. It has serious balance issues, no decent catch-up mechanic, is far too rigid in its fleet building and usage and links victory and defeat into a central mechanic that makes snowballing almost inevitable. Both campaigns we played were one-sided blowouts, the losing team quit after 2 rounds in the second campaign and no one could blame them. What I have been kicking around in my head is a complete re-imagining of the campaign system using the map and some concepts from Star Wars: Rebellion. We want to take away the link between winning/losing and the ability to field a viable fleet to fix the snowballing issue without making winning or losing meaningless. Instead, winning and losing has an impact on a different metric that indirectly affects your resources. We want an opportunity for both flexibility in fleet construction and more ways to include multiple players on single matches (final battle was the most fun part of campaign for some of our players). To that end, using the rebellion map, each Admiral would get 1000 points to spend on ships and squads but then be encouraged to deploy as multiple "task forces" to fulfil critical roles within the scope of the large campaign map. Rebels would employ hidden movement unless they massed fleets above a certain point total in one place. rebels can launch raids on imperial bases for resources causing the empire to have to spread themselves thin to protect the core systems leading to small engagements on 3' x 3' (under 300 pt) but gradually building up to larger and larger engagements. Multiple commanders can send fleet elements they own to mass an attack and have all sorts of crazy situations where you have 1 guy commanding his ISD and squads he sent in to help a fleet of Kittens against a massed single-admiral attack from the enemy. It needs a lot of work, tweaking and testing, but if the imperial objective is to find the rebel base and assault it and the rebel objective is to frustrate the imperials across a certain number of rounds (or successfully assault Coruscant), it would add a TON of variety and fun while using components from a readily available game.

I like the idea of spynet tokens, or maybe diplomats cause who the F uses those for anything? In our last campaign (was 2v2) we naturally ended up with some same matchups. In this one at 3v3 we are on round 2 and only 1 matchup is the same. as for lopsided battles, we also house-rule the distribution of resources, we distribute resources at the discretion of the grand admiral. If one fleet takes a particular beating, the effect can be amortized across all players to the degree decided by the team. we are playing the battles for round 2 tonight and we decided as a team to give a full 102 points to our attacking player so we could send him after a crucial rebel base while the rest of us took more modest upgrades. We find the campaign as is to be overly simplistic and while it works fine as a framework we will definitely be extending it out.

What we do is have a blind assignment. it actually adds a little bit of tension and unpredictability to the whole declaring of assaults thing. Its an honor system based thing but basically you decide who will do which assault and defense and lock it in BEFORE you know what the enemy is doing. You can't deliberately pair up counter fleets but you can try and outguess and out bluff the opponents.

I had a lot of fun with Devastator + Decked out Interdictor shield battery + 2 slicer tool flots and vader not super "tournament" effective, but if you manage to get devastator in their face and the interdictor slowing them down while your slicer tool flots take away all their nav commands it can be a blast.

VSD1s are absolutely my favourite Anvil. I usually put spinals on them and nothing else. In my first CC campaign my vic had the most ship kills of all of my ships by a wide margin. All you have to do is give the enemy the choice of facing your ISD1 short-rang pain-wallop, risk Demo threat range or fly towards that innocent looking VSD1 that everyone says is the worst ship ev...oh look you're dead. well timed CF command and you have 4 red 4 black front arc. God help you if you are double arced. Usually by the time my victory hits its a "finisher". It doesn't always work with every fleet and I would hesitate to take it to a tournament but in casual play and CC they are fearsome and relatively cheap. When you pay 120pts for an ISDII that will be mostly shooting 4 reds, a well deployed (spynet ftw) and supported Vic 1 with spinals for 82 does much the same thing, on top of area denial. It's not for everyone, no. And no it won't always work, but it's not a useless ship by any margin.