Have you played Rhymer? No he isn't. Rhymer played properly has way more tending than a get into Range 1 and shoot da ship squadron. Rhymer can cover flanks, threaten multiple ships/area denial, avoid point defense by performing a squadron center peel, kite enemy squadrons whilst putting damage on ships. Rhymer is also fantastic bait. I'll happily leave him in front of the pack to draw in multiple squadrons to Alpha strike him. Then I follow up with Mauler, Rouges, Vader and whoever came to kill him is is dead/crippled. Wot? This doesn't make sense. Taking another squadron away doesn't suddenly make others "MORE effective" Depends. If they have Xwings only you get an infintie amount of extra shooting because they cannot catch your Fireball that starts at Medium and flys the same speed. What Rhymer does is let you swing from Target to Target, disengage and aquire a new target instantlly. Speed 3 or 4 Bombers + Medium Range. Nothing can cover flanks quicker than Rhymer. This is his true power. Ship flak? Rhymer is the only squadron (Bomber) that enables you do avoid flak entirely (whilst putting damage on). Move up a compliment of bombers (that you can fully command next turn) into Medium Range during the Squadron Phase. First activation you shoot and fall back out of range. If you have Firesprays you don't even need to Command them as you can do this move in the Squadron phase. As second player leave them outside of max point defense range and let them drift into range. During the Squadron Phase you shoot the ship. This way you can fully command any Anti Squadron-Squadrons. Dengar/Vader. One gives a good effect to all squadrons in range adding extra attacks, one is anti squadron shotgun and bomber. Adding Vanilla varieties increases your tactical choices. You might be a "less efficent bomber ball" in terms of Potential Damage on paper. Or are you? If you add a Jump Master this allows you to put 5 black dice on a target instead of getting fully pinned down with 6 Tie Bombers that do "more damage" Efficiency is thrown around so often it has very little meaning to me. You cannot win on Tie Bombers/Bombers alone. You always have to take something to make them work or assist their deficiencies. No it doesn't. http://armadawarlords.hivelabs.solutions/view_list.php?token=45448&key=b18017289f533fe09b68f362be8c41a7 There we go? Or you could have like 7 Gozantis but I found that overkill (21 activations). This can command almost everything per turn. Show me it working and I'll be convinced this is a good squadron composition. My thinking says it isn't...you know what would help! Rhymer! Because when your Gozantis die and you can't command anything you can at least shoot something not in distance 1.

Funny. I was playing the first of three today and it came up straight away... "Change your ship three" "What? Read it careful, it's of each ship" (Blank face...regreting buying the VSD of yesterday) "Lemme check the thread i just posted" (Amanal brings the hurt) (sigh) "Play on" Thankfully wins 7-4 Horray it's not a total waste of an idea and VSD Kon 3 Medium Mk2 http://armadawarlords.hivelabs.solutions/view_list.php?token=44603&key=6c11e52da3f202c6e62386e8a1a876a2 - Boosted Comms after first game - Grav Shift + Grav Well. I love Grav Shift but i feel the delaying action of deploying at speed 0 and the combo/threat with Minefields/Fleet Ambush is very strong Game 1: Reeiken, Bright Hope, Liberty, TRC90, TRC90, Dash/YT2400/Han/Tychoo/3 Awing (with some happy snaps before my phone had low battery) Game 2: 3 Ackbar, 3 Guppy, Bright Hope, 4 Awing Game 3: Motti, ISD II, ISD II, Goz, Goz, 2 Tie Thoughts The good Dispite the inital misread Kons ability it is fantastic. Three ships gives you broad coverage, combined with G8 in the middle it can really mess around with the board. The speed up works very well, especially to help VSDs both to get in range and make them get out of range. Adding a Speed and increasing to Speed 2 really helped the VSDs dodge a lot of damage Projection Expert was good. In the intital game the prior day my Indic was focused down so I felt I wanted Eng Team. Today Projection Expert save many a VSD from death or for a critical turn. I try to test a list at least 6 times against different builds, keeping it much the same. PE went from cut to keep. Spinals are friggin great. Needa/TRC ranges from just as good to huge (and at the same price) but it can limit your defensive options. But it has also clutched a couple of ships with a double arc/double TRC burn The bad Enemy Nav tokens. Controlling the dial/speed with G8 is good. But if they are getting where they want with tokens anyway (Raymus/Comms Net) this is bad. I want Tractor Beam. Ideally it would be a Large Ship so that is +1 Large Ship +1 Tractor Beam. That's a lot of points. I could fit it on a Medium though. Fickle red dice. Nuff said. But Black battery makes up for it...eventually The ugly Misreading **** again?Despite getting hype based on the wrong information I'm feeling pretty good about Kon. I would definitely give him a go. I didn't care about TRC90 flanking given the Spinal and Interdictor arcs. I sped up the two flanking CR90. Once behind I slowed them down. Spinal rear dice with CF and Interdictor left no good place for a TRC90 to be. Both were killed by the rear arcs of VSDs. WTF! When could you ever previously say that...but an MC30/Demo could be a different story... As for holding things and how too...The idea for this list didn't come from Kon or Interdictor. I was looking for the worst objectives for a persons deployment. The objectives help herd people into areas and then the Grav Effects help the objectives. Give them some escape options for Minefields. They can't jump over the mines -at least where you don't want them to- when can set them at 0 via Titus/Grav well. Hiding isn't viable when you can push them out via Kon. Fleet Amush is much the same with the added bonus of cutting down their deployments and splitting their fleet. Most Wanted is bad to pick against TRC/Spinal/Vet Gun and black dice when they close in. MW means one ship can't do what it really wants to do or if they commit it, it pays for it. I bagged a Motti ISD with Most Wanted. I lost all my Medium ships fighting two Gunnery Team ISD II but he lost a Most Wanted Christmas Tree ISD II. So I traded evenly despite loosing three Medium Ships! Every game bar 1 out of 5 I have held things in the front arc and killed them with black dice. A very slippery Guppy landed between/behind my Interdictor and VSD...(wish i had a photo) That was the 3 Ackbar Guppies, which i had a narrow loss by 16 points. He killed my Floatilla and 2 Ties. I killed 3 Awings. But spot the difference. Before 3 Guppys would massacre 3 VSDs. Swap out 1 VSD for a Medium Interdictor and I didn't loose one Medium Ship due to Kon boosts, Grav Effects, Projection Expert. Keeping him off CF fire every turn was huge because i know that that is how he usally plays it out. For First Player there always Grav Well. You wall in a corner and Grav well the opposite to slow the fight the game down, letting VSDs nav aggressively and get in a better position. This usally involves two turns of I-I yaw so you slide your wall left or right in formation. I always deploy Goz/4 Squadrons. This gives you some indication of where they are favouring.

Nope. Im an idiot.

(reserved)

I've been trying out various Konstantine Lists. Some are purely on paper, some have had results, some I have seen have results. Follow this to see how it develops. Off to play test some lists in a couple of hours. Why Play Konstantine? Konstantine is cheap and has a unique ability. It requires good positioning, careful list building and seclecting the correct use of the ability itself to gain advantage. Why Three Ships Medium/Large -theorefore expensive- Ships? There are two main ways to exploit this. We can "Hold" ships with G8 Experimental Projector in place or keep at long range if it suits us. Conversely we can fly a ship out of position or force a ship to fly into closer range via acceleration. Speed manipulation also forces an opponent to use more Navigation commands, this can also disrupt their flight path by creating 'traffic jams' or puts a single ship on a collison course via speed control. What's the plan? I plan on brewing and playing some lists and seeing if something is competitive! As a seperate note this can work without an Interdictor, Kon only requires Medium+ bases, I just prefer to use him in conjunction with the ship, I think they are natural partners. I also generally strive for 4 activations. This is not easily achieved with 3 ISDs, but that is just my preference. Three ISDs could work very well with Kon. Lists So Far: Kon 3 Medium Attempt Mk1: W/L/D 4-1-0 http://armadawarlords.hivelabs.solutions/view_list.php?token=44603&key=5ca51211fcdd31c9bf986644deaa5299[/ Kon with ISD I http://armadawarlords.hivelabs.solutions/view_list.php?token=45233&key=c5e3ac4b678c9daf64022f417d89de51 Really like the idea of squzeing in the ISD. A far more potent mid range and close range blocker but sacrifices some long range potential. Has much better AA and can command the Tie Screen in a pinch. Importantly a Tractor Beam ship.

Won with this last night. Kon Minefields are brutal. No chance to hide, move debris post mine, Titus for the lol and option to run Grav Well. Still prefer Grav Shift to hate on DT/CP. Getting the whole 3 Kon triggers on 3 ships at once was awesome. Your Raider goes to 1, your Goz can fly away and your turtled ISD at long is now speed 3 and flying into close range of everything as soon as it activates. Going to play this a bunch, never thought I'd be buying a VSD expansion this late into the game Opponent was Ozzel, ISD II, Rdr I, Goz, Goz, Advanced, Vader, FireS, Bobba, Mauler, Sontir http://armadawarlords.hivelabs.solutions/view_list.php?token=44603&key=5ca51211fcdd31c9bf986644deaa5299 Kon 3 Medium Attempt Mk1 Author: Trizzo134 Faction: Galactic Empire Points: 398/400 Commander: Admiral Konstantine Assault Objective: Most Wanted Defense Objective: Fleet Ambush Navigation Objective: Minefields [ flagship ] Interdictor-class Suppression Refit (90 points) - Admiral Konstantine ( 23 points) - Interdictor ( 3 points) - Wulff Yularen ( 7 points) - Projection Experts ( 6 points) - G-8 Experiemental Projector ( 8 points) - Grav Shift Reroute ( 2 points) = 139 total ship cost Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (73 points) - Captain Needa ( 2 points) - Veteran Gunners ( 5 points) - Turbolaser Reroute Circuits ( 7 points) = 87 total ship cost Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (73 points) - Veteran Gunners ( 5 points) - Spinal Armament ( 9 points) = 87 total ship cost Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points) - Admiral Titus ( 2 points) - Boosted Comms ( 4 points) - Comms Net ( 2 points) = 31 total ship cost 3 TIE Interceptor Squadrons ( 33 points) 1 IG-88 ( 21 points)

You need Tie Fighters or you will be instantly destroyed by a Bomber Build. Check out my sig for a Tagge 2 ISD II list. The list at the top "current list" is the one i'm using now but you can see how it's changed over time.

Yes actually (for real). The question is how many points do you want you want to lose? You will wilt to AA Fire, bugger all damage, they out repair you, commanding enough Ties to do damage requires fat carriers and is inefficient For Imps the best way to compliment your Bombers anti fighters is I) black battery only (agressor, tie a, bossk, dengar, Vader) ii) flight controllers iii) mauler as your only blue battery squadron or 1 of a couple iv) firesprays A mixture of this is more than enough. "Ya the anti ship power is down" is certainly an understatement

5-6 with current Tagge list. Playing squadron matchups is tough (50% of the games have been) but the results are getting tighter and I'm figuring out deployment vs matchups where I'm going to be heavily out deployed. One game was a bummer, rolled 4 damage on a Liberty from ISD front arc (leading shots produces 3 accurecy), I needed at least 5 for the ram. He rolls back from side arc 3 damage with two red for the exact amount needed to kill the ISD on turn 6. Hoping to crack squadron matchups with squadron light. I don't want to have bought a second ISD for naught Best play was killing two Libs in one go. One was on 1 hull, the other full hull, zip shields, no brace. Rolled side arc and front against the full health, rolled a solid 5 damage from the side arc and hit the damage needed from the front. Then I bumped the other one and I lived with 2 hull. Had he repaired the 7 hull with repair crew prior turn he would have forced me to use Gunnery Team to kill it. This would have surely denied the kill on the other one but he failed to account for the side arc! Very close, I was sweating when he was choosing what to repair because I could see the arc and I think after 4 turns of shooting twice from the front arc he was thinking of that. It's always good to check the opponents view. I'll upload some picks to!

Boosted Comms, Expanded Hanger Bay, Flight Controllers or any other double retro offensive setup you want.

I never pick it and never run it. The biggest margin somone had against me in MF was 6-4, I picked it and lots 3 more points of squadrons than what 5-5 was worth at the time. Somebody had a MF two events ago and went 5-5, 5-5, 5-5 they played MF every game. The only use I have for it is currently testing Interdictor/Kon/Fleet Ambush/Minefields/Most Wanted build. I Grav Well a 6.5 AOE of deployment zone from one edge (about .5 in from the edge to block small ship from boarder) with a couple of mines, give them a narrow exit and pounce on them with G8.

I've been taking a backseat seeing what people have to say and it's very much appreciated. Keep in mind this is only the second episode! It's new for me in terms of running a podcast, developing a format, framing the discussion and facilitating it. I'm sure everybody who listened to the first and second episode would have noticed leaps and bounds in terms of quality from the discussion, the flow, more back and forth, improved audio and overall consistency. It's also new for participants. Before getting stuck into each other (which we do and many pairs are famous for their arguments) people need to be comfortable in speaking in this setting. I had to boost someones second half audio in post becuase they later told them they felt as if they were too loud and started speaking softer, this would hardly of made them feel relaxed! (my mistake was not telling people what I will do in in the editing). As for viewpoints what is "correct" or "true" to one person might be totally alien to another due to entirely different experiences. They aren't wrong, they just have different perspectives given their context. I believe it is better to have a strong opinion, based on experience or playtesting, than be wishy washy. I prefer the polemical as it makes us question orthodoxy, so that we do not take refuge in the false security of consensus. So long as this approach is tempered with a lack of arrogance and humility, to accepet other views or concede you could be wrong when presented with a good counter argument. Such views create a focal point arouind which disscussion revolves. Hopefully this is where insight can be had, for example... A "I think Sato is overhyped" B "Really? His ability is pretty good" A "Yes but you're not talking about his conditions, conditions that make him expensive and situational" B "So you build around it to mitiage the chance of that happening, conditional =/= bad" A "No it doesnt, but it makes him more narrow than people suggest" B "Well his usage is not as wide as first thought but it makes the strong archtype of squadrons stronger and pushes squadron play" A "Being a rational person I wouldn't dissagree that Sato is pretty good for squadron play and his ability is very good" This exact conversion pretty much played out amongst us on the weekend. You can probally guess who was spoiling for a fight on Sato Reading mail and annoucing events? Well that sounds fantastic acutally. Now the first few episodes are done and most of the introductions and spoilers (for now) done we will be doing much more focused, issue driven episodes. I'll send you a PM. Mail would be great, more community involvement = broader topics for discussion. As well as thoughts or questions on a prior episode.

I ran a GSD with Ruthless, it was fantastic in the squadron matucups and terrible against screens. I opted for OE because that's good in every mathcup... It might be worth trying a GSD II with Kallus as your extra AA. You add the Black at Medium for a 2 Blue 1 Black point defense against Rhymer/Imp hero Fireballs/Jan and if use Demo you can get another arc in. The advantage here is you can reroll the Black with OE. Raiders are good against Rebel bombers but hard to work against a Fireball if you are not first player. And Goz/Demo MSU Fireballs can bid high.

Contain is certainly more helpful vs bombers (you will use it lots and it will effect which other tokens you spend/burn) and a good defense token all round but for Endeavor unless you are running two Libs your probably going to go with MK. Take the comments in the context of comparing three titles not as an overall judgment on contain. You won't find a person who dislikes contain amongst us.

Correct. I don't remeber saying it or who did but they would be wrong!

-Due to the length of the episode, spoilers, discussions that flowed into each other there will not be a "Sqaudron Building discussion" as outlined in the introduction. We will reserve the topic of "Squadron Play" for a standalone episode dedicated entirely to it- http://pawarmada.podbean.com/e/pawcast-episode-2-post-tourney-corellian-conflict-wave-5-squadrons-for-squadron-players/ (reference for times/also in link) 0:00 Intro 3:16 Post Wave 4 Tourney/Practice Games 24:50 Corellian Conflict 48:37 Wave 5 50:00 Pelta & Upgrades 1:09:39 Arquitens & Upgrades 1:25:08 Rebel Squadrons 148:25:00 Imperial Squadrons - 230:00:00 End On the second episode of PAWCast we dissect our first Wave 4 Tournment and practice games. Then it's off to spoiler season for Corellian Conflict and Wave 5. Did you know Ciena Ree can use her ability against ships as well as counter? (making her nigh unkillable against a single ship at least) How can an ISD can point backwards at speed 3? Can an Interdictor make a 135 degree turn with Engine Techs? How about pairing Relay (as speculated) with Yavaris? Whats the pick of the new Squadrons for a Squadron player? For all these questions and more join us and sit through my poor on-the-fly-math and my horrible Sato "Friendly Ship" brain fart which we realised in post (although all my strikes against him still stand!). A long episode filled with flowing discussion. This episode was awesome to participate in and is an exhustive study of all coming spoilers. (Seriously, anybody who looses a Pelta to one Tie Advanced probably isn't that great! )

-opps, please delete or ignore or go here https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/229223-pawcast-episode-2-post-tournament-spoiler-season-and-squadrons-for-squadron-players/-

Squadrons were everywhere?

Gosh I hate minefields. I never pick it, unless I'm large ship and stack Eng. I've also never had a decisive game with MF. It ruins your day, your navs, your plans, so both players opt to run or never cross the MF. I also never ran it because despite having a huge impact on the board it would often give you no points at all. I'm hoping Konstantine and Inderdictor will change this. Most Wanted, Fleet Ambush, Minefields is my board disruption package with Konstantine/Grav Well/G8/Titus and x2 Vic. Konstantine can speed up all those who choose to stay put as well as slow down ships in narrow choke points. Also for Bossk, if he is being ignored (that's pretty great), attack a squadron with counter if able. Maybe they choose not to but maybe they don't Great vs Rhymer/Fireballs carrying Mauler.

lol and not completely taken aback...I said you don't want to play a wave 3 only meta as we tried it with proxy...this is why. The lists were an average 6 activations. And a 4 Goz, Demo, Fireball won a recent wave 4 tourney. Activation Bomber is pretty strong. Shame for no Wave 4! Hopefully this will suck more people in.

Don't forget that Rouge gains tempo by being able to enter the fight on their own after targets move into range or provides 'tough choices' to both squadrons and ships (are you going to leave an activated ship/squadrons in Lancer/Firespray/Ghost towing 2 Scurrgs?), will self manage if your carrier dies, kills Reeiken ships/heros in the squadron phase, lowers the need for overall squadron command and can still be activated by a command anyway. Leaving any squadron sitting about until squadron phase is a sure fire way to loose efficeny or trade value. Efficiency is not the best metric to evaluate Rouge. Rouge gives you tacticial and strategic choices that non rouge squadrons can't provide. But yes 1 Howlrunner, 5 Ties (F or I) and Flight Controllers shreds when played properly.

Intel covers a very large bubble. Distance one for a squadron is very long! Try it and see. I never need more than one and I have dropped down to just a vanilla Jump Master! Don't overextend into the enemy side of the board. Try to stay at max range of the enemy movement. This way they cannot pin your squadrons by getting around and behind you in multiple spots. This is hard to pull off with Rhymer. I have used Instigator and it is very good but must have some type of squadrons around so it isn't killed quickly. This way Instigator pins enemy squadrons and they cannot move at all (even with Intel/Grit) and your squadrons abosrb the damage that Instigator would be taking. I am yet to try Agent Kallus but I have him on paper lists. He is totally fine for the points cost but he has better synergy with Impetuous so he can add an extra dice to the attack...but Instigator is a much more impactful title...hmmm. Hard to say try both see what works. Personally I fine with Kallus on Instigator because of how good a well played Instigator can be. With the right squadron mix you can easily pin a massive bomber ball for a couple of turns. This couple of turns saves a Large Ship.

Is there enough AA? No. You have 11 Squadrons, 8 Squadron Command on x2 VSD with a Raider maybe being able to do 2 (but probally not wanting to squadron command expect on the occasional turn). Since you have no Rouge you want enough squadron command to activate all of them. - 2 Jump master + Dengar (it costs less) -2 Tie Advanced + Darth Vader (costs less) +2 flight controllers. Your bombers will carry the anti ship matchups. You need to plan for the anti squadron. Vader 'counts' as a bomber. He can roll a Crit/Hit against a ship and devestates squadrons. Dengar will help the 7 other squadrons with counter. Combined with Vader, 8 extra flight controller dice, Dengar counter, you are far more potent. Dont play Fleet Amush with this list. Someone will drop Mon Karen/ISD/another ship and kill a VSD per turn. They will also drop their squadrons and start fighting yours on turn 1 or 2 negating the advantage of Rhymer. vsds fighter heavy Faction: Galactic Empire Points: 400/400 Commander: Grand Moff Tarkin Assault Objective: Precision Strike Defense Objective: Contested Outpost Navigation Objective: Superior Positions [ flagship ] Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (73 points) - Grand Moff Tarkin ( 38 points) - Flight Controllers ( 6 points) - Boosted Comms ( 4 points) = 121 total ship cost Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (73 points) - Flight Controllers ( 6 points) - Boosted Comms ( 4 points) = 83 total ship cost Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points) - Instigator ( 4 points) - Agent Kallus ( 3 points) - Ordnance Experts ( 4 points) - Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points) = 60 total ship cost Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points) - Bomber Command Center ( 8 points) = 31 total ship cost 1 Major Rhymer ( 16 points) 1 Darth Vader ( 21 points) 1 Dengar ( 20 points) 1 TIE Advanced Squadron ( 12 points) 4 TIE Bomber Squadrons ( 36 points)

Fallacious arguments all. And I should add be good at both roles (AA and anti ship) AA is always supporting fire. It helps finish off squadrons. Nobdy jams a single strong point defense ship into a squadron ball and expects an even trade. As for your earlier comments I don't know how you play but on turns 1-2- maybe 3 a Demo could be shooting buckets of dice against Boosted Comms range squadrons whilst on it's way to hunt ships and safely out of range, wow it is easy is it to make up anything i want to support my argument! The game isn't all about hard or soft counters. AA fire will always assist Flight Controllered Interceptors regardless of how good they are at killing squadrons. Back to the supporting fire idea.

That's ridiculous. You have all the upgrades that you would take on a Demo anyway to make it work as AA, the choice comes down to +6 points, 1 dice and target selection. Upgrade to a GSD II, Demo Intel Off, OE, APT. Now you are statisticlly almost par with the deadliest point defense (Rdr1 w. OE) and can still push ships in. Ohh and I have tested the GSD II in actual games. Winner of one store champs and runner up of another and using the GSD II in the exact setup I described to compliment AA for for a Fireball or mirrors. There is nothing counter-synergestic about a GSD II shooting squadrons. It's completetly asinine to write something off you clearly havn't tested, doubly so by comparing it to a janky combo. Why not use anti squadron squadrons? Was that part of the initial question? No. Of course taking squadrons to counter squadrons is the obvious choice. Demolisher is absolutely the very last thing any Imperial Commander should be looking to for Anti Squadron duties. If you want to use a non demo Gladiator for AA duties, fair enough, that is your choice. This is totally the wrong way to even approach thinking about the game, as in X thing has Y roll, it will only ever do this thing because that's common practice. Squadrons are points. Kill them you get points. Kill them so you save loosing points. 134 point squadron lists is 134 extra MoV to potentially collect. Not every Demo has to have DeMSU tunnel vision. And a non Glad Demo is fair enough to use for AA but a title that improves the AA potential is not the right use of it?...hmmm You don't have to act in anyway particular way but i prefer to have the choice of being able to attack mulitple targets. Demo being strong against ships =/= never shoot squadrons with Demo. Do what makes sense to do.