Is anything considered cheesy/overpowered in this game?

[AckAckAckbar 33]

I am relatively new to the game but a very experienced table top gamer. As I read through fleet build ideas I keep thinking to myself, "Is that not considered cheesy?"

 

I am not trying to criticize anyone or any builds. Just wondering if people worry about lists being cheesy in this community?

My definition of cheesy can be several things: 
    Building an overpowered fleet using too many ship upgrades and synergies that make the fleet not very fun to play against.
    Building a fleet that is fake. Would we really see two ISD's with no support ships or even any tie fighters? 
    Or a list with all squadron points all spent on named squadrons. Playing against armies full of elites has always left a bad taste in mouth.

I remember the old days of Warhammer when every army was just elite heroes with a ton a magic items. The game stopped being a fun table top strategy game and became about who could pack the most destructive combo of magic items.

I worry that with each new wave we will get a new list of upgrades that will result in more and more overpowered combos that take over the game.

When I build a fleet I feel compelled to make it realistic (yes I realize this is fantasy) and I want to make sure my opponent has fun and wants to play me again. A battleship should have support ships and squadrons. I feel the game is better and more enjoyable this way. The best games I have had are when both sides played with naked ships. But that is the great thing about these games we can all play our own way.

[Drasnighta 26,833]

Take all of your concerns from previous games, and put them aside.

 

These forums are full of Sarcastic Bastards who often very quickly resort to Hyperbole to get their points across.

 

I am one of them.

 

But with that bit out of the way - there are often calls and cries that this-or-that is OP, this-or-that is Broken, this-or-that is Cheesy...

 

But its not.

 

This is a young, evolving game.  It is not without its flaws, but it doesn't suffer under the burdon of so many combinations and "I push this Button and Win" combos that there is anything you can do.

 

Everyone can play their own way.  

 

And everyone can be competitive in their own way.

 

Anyone who tells you otherwise is being overly negative, or trying to sell you on their point of view.

[Vergilius 2,118]

Most games like Star Wars Armada see different aspects to the community.  Although we all play the same game, we don't necessarily play it the same way.  In my experience, playing the game as a story set within the Star Wars Universe is always in tension with playing the game as a game that has Star Wars in the background.

 

Onto your specific definitions of cheezy:

 

1.  Too many synergies/unfun to play against:  The meta is still unfolding.  I'd see this as an issue if everyone brings exactly the same type of fleets every time.  Sure, some get played more than others, but we see a good variety of Rebel and Imperial, a good use of all the ships that have been released, and a good use of the different commanders, objectives, and so forth.  We definitely see some upgrades used more frequently than others, but the point is that there is a lot of competitive variety.  This game depends upon mastering several different aspects of it, so you cannot win entirely by building.

 

2.  A fake fleet:  What you describe here definitely sounds like a roleplay view of the game.  I'm sympathetic to that personally.  What it takes to have fun is some good players that you can meet with casually who are open to building fleets with specific restrictions.  Every game like this is a sandbox that players can decide exactly what they want to do with on their own.  So if you want to play 300, 500, or 1000 points, that's perfectly doable.  If you want to play with different rules on fighter compositions, that's good, too.  Competitively in official tournaments, you're going to have to allow that some of what you call a fake fleet is going to be perfectly acceptable within the gamer community.

 

3.  Squadrons full of elites;  My sense right now is that we've got good balance between whether you take elites or generics.  Elites have great abilities, but you can sometimes take almost 2 generic squadrons for the same price.  In competitive environments, there are some specific combos that you can expect to see more frequently than others.  That's going to be true in any game.  I've seen almost everything used at this point.

[Arcanis161 49]

 

    Building an overpowered fleet using too many ship upgrades and synergies that make the fleet not very fun to play against.

 

There's some that can be argued as being cheesy. Clontroper5's famous fleet is currently under review by the members of this forum to determine if it actually is cheesy, but it's probably going to wind up like most of the rest of the "cheesy" combinations people have found: its a combination of both synergy and skill, and much more of the latter.

 

That's really why I like the gameplay of Star Wars: Armada so much. Many other games I've played have always suffered from certain factions/combos becoming dominant because nothing can beat them. Here, cheesiness comes from player skill, and cheese can be beaten with skill.

 

 

 

    Building a fleet that is fake. Would we really see two ISD's with no support ships or even any tie fighters? 

   

 

This does not happen anymore due to the Rogues and Villains expansion bringing excellent squadrons to synergize with the basic squadrons from Wave 1. While, again, it is possible to win without using any squadrons due to skill factor, most fleets now have a minimum of 2-3 squadrons to hold off enemy fighters.

 

 

 

    Or a list with all squadron points all spent on named squadrons. Playing against armies full of elites has always left a bad taste in mouth.

 

You can do that and have it be effective with Rieekan, but there are a few problems with this:

1) Named squadrons cost much more than the basic squadrons, meaning you'll bring fewer squadrons.

2) If you don't plan efficiently, your squadrons will likely be spread too thin to deal with any significant amount of enemy basic squadrons.

3) Going all named squadrons, while powerful with synergies with each other (empire) or specific ship upgrades (rebel), also leaves your squadrons overall more vulnerable. The only difference between a named squadron and its basic version is a special ability, possibly a speed upgrade, and defense token(s). Concentrated attacks from basic squadrons WILL kill named squadrons, especially when the opponent brings more basic squadrons than your named squadrons.

 

All in all, this is a very balanced skill based game where the victor is the one who recognizes the potential of the enemy fleet, the strength of his own fleet, and plans (and adjusts the plans) the best way to win the scenario.

"Thus it is said that one who knows the enemy and knows himself will not be endangered in a hundred engagements. One who does not know the enemy but knows himself will sometimes be victorious, sometimes meet with defeat. One who knows neither the enemy nor himself will invariably be defeated in every engagement." -Sun Tzu

Edited February 28, 2016 by Arcanis161

[Vogons 195]

One synergy group can be the answer to others in this game. Just came from playing a B wing carrier fleet. My usual opponent came screaming at me with his usual Howl runner/Mauler ball. It has eaten my fighter alive a few times. This time it ran into my escorts backed up by flight controllers and backed up by gallant haven. There are enough upgrades to  find a counter what your opponent throws at you.

 

P.s. the B wings help take down an Imperium class.  

[Ginkapo 9,321]

In the last few months we've gone from the Rhymer Ball is Overpowerd, to Demolisher is overpowered via Ackbar is overpowered. Thats the good thing about this game, there is a touch of rock paper scissors so if the meta play leans too far in one direction a counter will rise to destroy it, but its supremacy is short lived.

[D6Damager 2]

In the last few months we've gone from the Rhymer Ball is Overpowerd, to Demolisher is overpowered via Ackbar is overpowered. Thats the good thing about this game, there is a touch of rock paper scissors so if the meta play leans too far in one direction a counter will rise to destroy it, but its supremacy is short lived.

So it that the evolving meta of the game...rocks-paper-scissors? That's not really encouraging a new players question about game balance.

[Bluewatcher 1]

Any game can be unbalanced; right now, with the 400 point limit on fleets, Armada prevents you from being overpowering in one facet and good at everything else. You have to pick and choose between powerful ships or powerful bomber/fighter lists. And lots of small ships can clobber an MC-80 or Imperial Star destroyer. You want a truly balanced game dependent on only player skill? Go play chess.

[Jondavies72 575]

Take all of your concerns from previous games, and put them aside.

 

These forums are full of Sarcastic Bastards who often very quickly resort to Hyperbole to get their points across.

 

I am one of them.

 

But with that bit out of the way - there are often calls and cries that this-or-that is OP, this-or-that is Broken, this-or-that is Cheesy...

 

But its not.

I would agree with most of what you said. There is no auto win fleet, but lots of good components that can be put together in lost of different ways that can work well ( even sub optimal units, tend to have specific spaces in well balanced fleets).

There are a small number of specific builds that are in my opinion easier to win against than others, the most obvious being the two ship list, which just suffer from a lack of activation......

 

This is a young, evolving game.  It is not without its flaws, but it doesn't suffer under the burdon of so many combinations and "I push this Button and Win" combos that there is anything you can do.

 

Everyone can play their own way.  

 

And everyone can be competitive in their own way.

 

Anyone who tells you otherwise is being overly negative, or trying to sell you on their point of view.

[Jondavies72 575]

Whoops I messed the last post up......

[FNG tie pilot 123]

The only card I would really complain about is XI-7s. It's not broken, but it is under costed for how good it is. Every other combo, upgrade, or strategy in the game has some sort of Achilles heel ranging from poor flying, bad timing, straight counter, point cost, is only useful in certain situations situations, etc. XI-7s work great in every situation as long as you are throwing dice and at 6 points they are dirt cheap

Edited March 2, 2016 by FNG tie pilot

[TheEasternKing 607]

The only card I would really complain about is XI-7s. It's not broken, but it is under costed for how good it is. Every other combo, upgrade, or strategy in the game has some sort of Achilles heel ranging from poor flying, bad timing, straight counter, point cost, is only useful in certain situations situations, etc. XI-7s work great in every situation as long as you are throwing dice and at 6 points they are dirt cheap

 

Surely they are no different than Heavy Turbolaser Turrets? TRC are amazingly powerful, and cost a single point more, I think perhaps the original Enhanced Armament, H9 & XX-9 could use a slight reduction in cost.

[Ghost Dancer 401]

 

    Or a list with all squadron points all spent on named squadrons. Playing against armies full of elites has always left a bad taste in mouth.

 

 

I do this quite a lot  

 

Remember each squadron represents a number of fighters (for the sake of argument, lets say 6). Thematically, unique squadrons are a group of several fighters (e.g. 6) led by an elite pilot. So, if I take 5 named squadrons, that's only 5 elite pilots and 20 (using our example) 'rookie' fighters.

[Vogons 195]

I think the point I was making is there is enough stuff available to define your own meta. When someone comes along and breaks it for you, there are plenty of other resources to change it out and let it evolve. There are enough variables with ships, and upgrade cards  that things are constantly changing. Post a fleet and 4 people will come back with "I have a fleet  like that but I..." Odds are a couple of other people will chime in saying how they would beat that fleet. It's not a one time thing, this game is constantly evolving as people look for new meta's.  

[AckAckAckbar 33]

My main concern is that the game becomes all about combos of ship upgrades instead of a strategic spaceship game. I would rather play with a larger force of naked ships than a few uberships that beak all the rules. It can be frustrating to play a game and not get to use any defense tokens because of synergies of upgrades.  Again, my goal is for both playes to have fun.

I am still new to the game so I am going to have to find how it works. I might enjoy the cheesy upgrade combos more than I think. Right now I just want to see lots of ships and squadrons across the board.

In case my group wants to limit upgrade cards, I had a few ideas:

-small ships can have only 1 card, medium can have 2, large ships can have 3.

or

-no more than X amount of points per fleet can be spent on upgrade cards. That way if you want one supership you might have to have the rest of your ships naked.

[TheEasternKing 607]

My main concern is that the game becomes all about combos of ship upgrades instead of a strategic spaceship game. I would rather play with a larger force of naked ships than a few uberships that beak all the rules. It can be frustrating to play a game and not get to use any defense tokens because of synergies of upgrades.  Again, my goal is for both playes to have fun.

I am still new to the game so I am going to have to find how it works. I might enjoy the cheesy upgrade combos more than I think. Right now I just want to see lots of ships and squadrons across the board.

In case my group wants to limit upgrade cards, I had a few ideas:

-small ships can have only 1 card, medium can have 2, large ships can have 3.

or

-no more than X amount of points per fleet can be spent on upgrade cards. That way if you want one supership you might have to have the rest of your ships naked.

 

I'd suggest you learn the game comprehensively before you start deciding to arbitrarily remove parts of it, Imperial Ships (ISD/VSD) usually get one chance per game to use a full frontal dice pool, upgrades allow this to actually do something, rather than a poor roll, and that is it, your chance is gone.

 

And where do you even start on deciding what is "cheesy" Boosted Comms and Expanded Hanger bays..allowing you to activate one more squadron, and at long, not medium range, is that cheesy? or Tantive IV with Raymus, allowing you to hand out 2 tokens to ships in range? I do not think anything in this game is cheesy, or must have, or you will lose if you do not build a certain way, the upgrades add a much needed layer of complexity to the game.

 

The game is very very well balanced, you take 2 ships with good upgrades, your opponent brings 5 ships no upgrades, sure your 2 will be potentially stronger than any individual ship he brought, but when he is activating 3/4 ships after yours, suddenly 2 ships is not so hot, Seriously play the game, all of it, learn it and understand it, and you will see what I and everyone else here is saying, There is no cheese

 

Edited to add :  you can have zero upgrades, and still get zero defense tokens, all depends on how many accuracy results come up.

Edited March 3, 2016 by TheEasternKing

[GIJosef 3]

 

My main concern is that the game becomes all about combos of ship upgrades instead of a strategic spaceship game. I would rather play with a larger force of naked ships than a few uberships that beak all the rules. It can be frustrating to play a game and not get to use any defense tokens because of synergies of upgrades.  Again, my goal is for both playes to have fun.

I am still new to the game so I am going to have to find how it works. I might enjoy the cheesy upgrade combos more than I think. Right now I just want to see lots of ships and squadrons across the board.

In case my group wants to limit upgrade cards, I had a few ideas:

-small ships can have only 1 card, medium can have 2, large ships can have 3.

or

-no more than X amount of points per fleet can be spent on upgrade cards. That way if you want one supership you might have to have the rest of your ships naked.

 

I'd suggest you learn the game comprehensively before you start deciding to arbitrarily remove parts of it, Imperial Ships (ISD/VSD) usually get one chance per game to use a full frontal dice pool, upgrades allow this to actually do something, rather than a poor roll, and that is it, your chance is gone.

 

And where do you even start on deciding what is "cheesy" Boosted Comms and Expanded Hanger bays..allowing you to activate one more squadron, and at long, not medium range, is that cheesy? or Tantive IV with Raymus, allowing you to hand out 2 tokens to ships in range? I do not think anything in this game is cheesy, or must have, or you will lose if you do not build a certain way, the upgrades add a much needed layer of complexity to the game.

 

The game is very very well balanced, you take 2 ships with good upgrades, your opponent brings 5 ships no upgrades, sure your 2 will be potentially stronger than any individual ship he brought, but when he is activating 3/4 ships after yours, suddenly 2 ships is not so hot, Seriously play the game, all of it, learn it and understand it, and you will see what I and everyone else here is saying, There is no cheese

 

Edited to add :  you can have zero upgrades, and still get zero defense tokens, all depends on how many accuracy results come up.

 

 

Amen EK!  I have a new member in my group that wants more objective to choose from.  He says "the current ones are kind of meh".  Ummm, you're stating this all the while having just the demo game as a means of judgement?  I told him to seriously play the game a few times and learn how the lists work with missions and get the intricacies of those figured out before we start begging for more objectives.  

 

Things like that and complaining about overpowered ships/lists just make my head hurt.  By no means am I any expert at this game, but you nailed it, if someone has a fully pimped out Demolisher and a pimped out ISD, they are hurting in other areas.  This game is IMO, well balanced.  When you see discussions about squadron vs non-squadron lists and it's split about 50/50 in regards to favored and non-favored, you have a balanced game.  Learn the rules, learn the strengths and weaknesses of the ships and the synergy with Admirals and upgrades.  You'll enjoy the game more and more once you start seeing how balanced it already is without suggesting and implementing "tweaks" that you think benefit a game that went through rigorous play testing to develop in the first place.

[AckAckAckbar 33]

I really don't think I was complaining. I was more asking the opinions of more experienced players. Although I am new to Armada I am not new to table top wargaming. I have been playing for over 25 years, this is not the first rulebook I have read. I have had experiences with other games that led to overpower builds that seem to take the fun out of an awesome game. Armada is an awesome game and I wondered in advance if people were having trouble with this issue.

I even said "I am still new to the game so I am going to have to find how it works." I am not trying to rewrite the game. I simply mentioned a few ideas I had if my group wants to tone down upgrade cards. I didn't say I think the rules should be rewritten.

Another reason I was asking, is because I was trying to figure out in advance the way people build. I don't want to show up at a tournament one day and find out I brought a list that everyone rolls their eyes at and says it is a cheesy list. What I gather from this post is that everything seems fair game as every list has enough pros and cons to balance it out.

[Spellbound 27]

I will agree that XI-7's seem a bit too good for what they do.  The heavy turbolaser turrets, at least, just make the opponent use two defense tokens, which can be really great if they've already exhausted their redirect!  But despite it being at a cost, the enemy HAS an option to still get what they want.

 

XI-7 just.... makes enhanced projectors and the shrimp title card NOT WORK, as well as making the redirect token pretty much useless. 

[Maturin 1,583]

There is nothing in Armada that approaches the broken fun-draining power assault armies of 40k 4th ed. Not even remotely. My shooty beginner marine army could literally do nothing as enemy assault units consolidated from one combat to another.

You will hear many people complaining about this or that of course. X-i7's, Squadrons, Demolisher...

But there are many of us who revel in turning the common wisdom on its head, and have fielded fleets with "subpar" units .... and we have made them consistently work. Whether it's squadrons in wave 1, or Nebulons now...nothing is an auto-lose, or auto win. Even the vaunted Clonisher has its weaknesses - but like many things in this game, it just takes some time to understand the true risks and benefits of a unit.

[AckAckAckbar 33]

XI-7's are powerful. I am running them on my MC80 tonight.

If you run Advanced Projectors that helps make your redirects more useful. Although not every ship can take that option. I guess that is what everyone is saying, there is always an answer to something that is powerful.

 

 

[Mad Cat 2,250]

Advanced projectors were once considered a little over powered but ironically it was the XI7 rule clarification in the FAQ that toned them down to just being good. ECMs took over as the preferred defensive upgrade.

 

XI7s are really good but hardly game breaking. Anyway when you play a list of 5xNeb-Bs enemy XI7s are nothing more than wasted points.

 

My personal peeve at the moment is Jan Ors backed up by 2-4 X-wings. A very powerful fighter force for not that many points. Killing X-Wings with Tie fighters was always a tricky proposal but when you can't lock them down and they get brace tokens from her ladyship it does annoy. Jan doesn't break the game but I'd easily pay 25 points to add her to a list.

[AckAckAckbar 33]

I haven't tried Jan Ors yet. I am having fun with Han Solo and multiple YT-2400's. I love the rogue ability.

[Spellbound 27]

True, Heavy Turbolaser Turrets are useless against someone running corvettes or MC30s, and XI-7 are useless against raiders and nebulons.  So there is a way around some of those things.

[Truthiness 5,698]

I'm an old Warhammer guy myself. This game is better balanced than any game ever produced by GW. There are powerful combos for sure, but we're rapidly finding that everything has a counter. Even the dreaded Demolisher triple tap can either a) be outbid or b) run into the Rieekan wall. I don't even blink at XI7s most days because I typically bring a pair Neb-Bs. Double braces and no redirects mean the upgrade does nothing. The wave 2 meta is incredibly deep. If someone is screaming overpowered, direct them to the forums. The regulars here are usually more than happy to suggest ways to counter.

Edited March 5, 2016 by Truthiness