Suggestion: Two fast, simple solutions to fix "fleeing flotillas"

[thecactusman17 3,192]

After several games where I both used and saw this tactic, I have two solutions that I believe will, in the long run, turn "runaway" flotillas into a less viable strategy while also handling some other issues with the game.

Fix 1:  Lose the Scatter.  The scatter is a major contributor to the Flotilla phenomenon.  When flying to stay at red range or beyond, most if not all combat ships cannot seriously or consistently threaten flotillas in any meaningful way unless utilizing a combination of multiple upgrades specifically designed to harm Flotillas, particularly H9 Turbolaser Batteries for the forced accuracy.  What this means is that at long range, players simply cannot threaten to overwhelm the scatter like they do when attacking at closer range with blue dice or while close to particular support ships and squadrons (Captain Jonus and Home One in particular).  I believe that for maximum survivability, they should be given a brace and increase the Repair rating by 1.  This would encourage players to take more shots at Flotillas that are trying to escape, and also encourage more diverse command selection in flotillas to let them repair damage when successfully escaping.  This will have the side benefit of making them more susceptible to squadron attacks, which is highly thematic.  finally, I note that this brings the idea of Lifeboat flotillas intoa realm no more objectionable than Lifeboat CR90s and Lifeboat Raiders, which were rarely complained about in previous editions.

Fix 2:  Make Relay count as a part of a squadron activation.  This will reduce the common sight of multiple flotillas activating multiple squadrons from across the board, leaving a decentralized yet fully operational squadron force.  After relay is used, the associated squadron will become activated if it is not already.  This also opens up more tactical decisions, such as whether to use Jendon as a dedicated Relay for two squadrons or to immediately command his preferred friendly squadron to shoot.  Finally, this also makes Boosted Comms a more effective upgrade for larger engagements.

These two elements are key reasons why Flotillas are the preferred small ships.  Yes, Flotillas will still be used as Activations while they are the cheapest ships on the block.  But by reducing their survivability and forcing them to get closer to combat to offer meaningful contributions, the wealth of choices available in Armada will be more appealing to competition players.

[TerrorScream 133]

i feel the scatter is fine, its the evade that is the problem. you roll the accuracy and maybe one dice with a hit at 3 reds at long....then they just evade the damage, taking away the scatter makes them too vulnerable to fighters

[Church14 2,495]

Once again, killing the little suckers isn't the problem. It is the cheap activation advantage. Neither solution offered helps that. 

[thecactusman17 3,192]

1 minute ago, Church14 said:

Once again, killing the little suckers isn't the problem. It is the cheap activation advantage. Neither solution offered helps that. 

Killing them removes the activation issue,  and I disagree.   The ships are effectively immune to all damage against several major combat ships from both sides except for random chance.  If all you have is red dice,  that's a 1/8 chance that you'll do any damage at all. 

 

8 minutes ago, TerrorScream said:

i feel the scatter is fine, its the evade that is the problem. you roll the accuracy and maybe one dice with a hit at 3 reds at long....then they just evade the damage, taking away the scatter makes them too vulnerable to fighters

1 red damage at long range on three dice is an aberration, but not a drastic one.   By that token,  you should be howling about everything that likes to engage from long range with an evade.   Why not complain about CR90s or MC30s shooting back with double evades? 

You don't complain because if you do two damage,  1 goes through.   If you do 3 damage, they can only get rid of one die.

Evades are balanced.   Evades make the ship difficult to hurt.  But they don't eliminate the ability to do any damage at all.

[mcworrell 810]

To fix the relay problem: require the shuttle/vcx to be in activation range (medium w/o boosted comes) of the ship using the command.  I was surprised that this wasn't the case from the beginning.  It seems a little crazy to me that you can relay from across the board.

[thecactusman17 3,192]

1 minute ago, mcworrell said:

To fix the relay problem: require the shuttle/vcx to be in activation range (medium w/o boosted comes) of the ship using the command.  I was surprised that this wasn't the case from the beginning.  It seems a little crazy to me that you can relay from across the board.

The problem is that it doesn't then do anything meaningful you couldn't do without Boosted Comms for cheaper and less drawback.  Activating from across the board is a major element in the design.  Clearly it's supposed to be used with Fighter Ambush, and that requires you be able to activate squadrons from outside natural activation range.  Even with Flight Commander and Boosted Comms a speed 3 ISD cannot reach squadrons at or close to the opponent's deployment zone.

[Norsehound 2,740]

3 hours ago, thecactusman17 said:

Killing them removes the activation issue,  and I disagree.   The ships are effectively immune to all damage against several major combat ships from both sides except for random chance.  If all you have is red dice,  that's a 1/8 chance that you'll do any damage at all.

C'mon, if I come to the table with three flotillas and put two of them on opposite ends of my deployment zone, are you really going to send real combat ships after them? Of course they're going to do what most activation-minded players are going to do... speed 0, bank a navigate token, and just declare they are activating them for their turn to wait you out. That is the issue, not the matter of their defensiveness. They need that simply to be a viable unit in combat.

And right now, the Rebels can buy these activations at the cheapest with 18 points irrespective of if you put anything on them or not.

[thecactusman17 3,192]

I'm not going to throw a dedicated combat ship at them.  That's the problem:  The current setup means an unarmed flotilla effectively can't be attacked unless you have a dedicated combat ship that can even roll accuracy results.

But with the scatter gone I'm going to throw anything at all at them because now i can actually plink damage through.  Slowly.  This gives even Gozanti cruisers a basic combat role.  It makes Rebel cruisers have to strategize carefully.  In fact, it even makes Rebels look at that Combat flotilla now that it might have a basic role to play.  And it's still ridiculously slow unless I spare that dedicated combat ship or squadron.

The issue with Flotillas is very simple and straightforward:  it's not possible to do damage to them without first getting rid of the scatter, or getting an Accuracy (and may the force be with you if they put Tua on that thing).  This means that unless you can focus down a freighter with your entire force, there is simply no meaningful method by which to attack them.

Look at what Imperials get to try hitting them with.  The only ships in the Imperial fleet that can even take H9 Turbolasers are ISDs, VSDs, and Arquitens Cruisers.  3 ships in the entire fleet that can get an accuracy on demand without hoping for Captain Jonus to arrive.  The others can hope to reroll into one at best.

Look at what Rebels get.  The Assault Frigate, the Liberty, the Home One MC80.  Decent, but not capable of running one down.  Sure, they can take H9 Turbolasers.  But if they don't their odds of killing a Flotilla are basically nil.  Hypothetically, any two of those ships could both attack it at long range every turn in a game and cause no damage while rolling damage results every turn.  Between Scatter and Evade, anything other than crippling damage plus an Accuracy won't put any damage on the ship.

[MandalorianMoose 1,862]

Ackbar assault MC80 with H9 gobbles up flotillas like nobodies business, even at red range. And once you have eliminated half or more of the enemies fleet it's not too shabby at cleaning up the rest of the ships either 

[Blail Blerg 7,585]

I've got an even better idea: remake the game from its core to encourage spread out action and multiple focal points of activity. 

Another one: release upgrades that really make small ships into flotilla hunters.  (mc30 with H9 is the most fitting atm).  

--

On a more seirous and related note: can you talk about the games you're citing more?  What makes them a "problem", what made this problem seem insurmountable? 

Frankly, I definitely don't think flotillas should lose scatter.  

[thecactusman17 3,192]

For one, I played our All Out Offensive on Sunday.  At the end of the game, the Rebels had only one combat ship on the table (a running Admonition)  but had at least 5 GR-75s.  By and large, this was due to the fact that there were few, if any, ships that could actually push damage through.  Imperials had 2 gozantis, an ISD, and a Raider.  On numerous occasions, multiple ships fired on GR-75s  and Gozantis around the board but could not actually get damage through in any form of consistent manner.  Only flotillas that had been tapped as priority targets or which received high damage with accuracy results died.  Nearly everything else survived.

I spent this morning playing against Tokra's excellently played Gozanti swarm in the Vassal Freshman tournament.  Hats off to Tokra for playing his fleet well.  However, it should be noted that not a single Gozanti in that game died to dice attacks.  Instead, most of the damage and the only kill to all 9 flotillas on the board was due to ramming.  Even with Accuracy results, my options at range were to either accuracy the scatter and hope something was left after the evade, or go for the evade and nothing took damage.

This was just one extreme example of an issue I've seen in nearly every list that features the current flotilla selection.  It is basically impossible to damage them reliably without dedicating a warship that may be multiple times their cost to the task.  This is just the current under-costing issue of Flotillas seen from the opposite side.  And it's an aspect that could be fixed with the least impact to the rest of the game balance.  When Flotillas were announced, the excitement wasn't just about a cheap ship.  It was about a cheap ship that was infinitely more durable than the more heavily armed ships around it.  The Gozanti is, for example, vastly more likely to survive a point blank shot from a VSD or Ackbar'd Assault Frigate than a Raider, Gladiator, or CR90.  If no dice roll an accuracy (and on red dice that's a 1/8 chance) there won't be any damage at all.  If the range is extended to long, the lack of blue dice to provide accuracy almost eliminates the threat of damage and an evade reduces any that get through further still.

The H9s are definitely a potential help, but they are a patch that only affects one type of target.  My suggestion is to keep Flotillas viable at range, but not invulnerable.  The scatter is costed too low on a  ship that is already designed to avoid fights entirely.

Now if the scatter should stay, it should be a premium option.  Place it instead on the combat variants of each flotilla, which will force them to draw into medium range where the Accuracy is more likely to occur.  This bump in price would make a better trade for the ability and reduce the overwhelming flotilla spam.  At least placing it on the combat variants would somewhat justify needing to take out a Flotilla with a massive bomber strike or combat ship rush.  Lightly armed transports shouldn't be tougher to damage than fully-armored and shielded warships.

[ovinomanc3r 4,436]

[Wonderbread 98]

5 hours ago, mcworrell said:

To fix the relay problem: require the shuttle/vcx to be in activation range (medium w/o boosted comes) of the ship using the command.  I was surprised that this wasn't the case from the beginning.  It seems a little crazy to me that you can relay from across the board.

This would basically be boosted comms 

[Tokra 2,147]

As one of the more experienced flotilla players i have to add a bit to it.

Yes, they are ridiculous. They are hard to kill, unless you have a direct counter for them (H9, Home one, engine techs, ...).
There are counter for them. This is no question. But as soon as you add counters especially for hunting down flotillas, and start to hunt them down (with a ship that cost way more than the one you hunt), the opponent already won. Because he was able to enforce his game to you. Imo the best flotilla hunter are Jendon + Stele for only 41 points. But they are way more worth on other places of the battlefield instead of hunting a 18 point flotilla.
And even if you are hunting down the commander Flotilla, it might have cost you more fleet points to hunt him down as the bugger is worth. And there is not even a guarantee that you are able to kill it.

It does not help as well that these little bugs have a speed of 3, and can easy dodge a lot of ships this way. A Speed of 2 would have been way better and not such a big problem.

One more, we are not talking about flotilla that fly into the combat (Comms Net supporter) and might get attacked this way. We are talking about these that hide at the edge and/or are scattered all over the map. These that buy activations or abuse relay.
You have only 6 turns. And if there are 3 flotilla on the opponents edge, scattered all over the length, you just cannot hunt them all down. You might get into range of 1 or maybe 2.

One real main problem is relay. Without relay you had to keep the flotilla near the squadrons and always in range of the enemy ships. Even with boosted comms the flotilla are reachable by the opponent.
Now you dont have to do it anymore. The best chance you have right now is to kill the relay ships. But you need squadrons for this. Ships cannot do this.

 

But removing the scatter from flotilla does not solve anything. It only make them unplayable, because their stats are made for the scatter token. If you remove it, you will have to add two other tokens for them, and maybe even change their values a bit (shield 2 on all sides, +1 evade, +1 redirect or brace). Just removing the scatter and not change anything would mean you can as well remove them completely.

 

A little note to the gozanti swarm. Play against it (with someone who know what he is doing). And than you will see what i mean. I calculate 3-4 casualties, even if the opponent has a direct counter. Normally i should not lose more 4 (so 107 - 156 Points plus the squadrons: 0-134). The rest is somewhere far out of range of his ships. It was worse without the relay, but with it they became really insane (I never thought they would become this good with the relay).
What other list can calculate the losses this well.
I might be wrong, and a experienced player is able to kill all from me. But i really doubt it.

[Ginkapo 9,320]

2 hours ago, Tokra said:

I might be wrong, and a experienced player is able to kill all from me. But i really doubt it.

I believe you are. Your squadrons are very easy to tie up. And I have explained in a new thread article killing flotillas should be simple if your fleet is configured correctly. Not configured for killing flotillas specifically, configured for killing. 

I have 3 lists at the moment. Every single one would beat you. I doubt they would table you. I'll let @Truthiness do that.

I have played Aresius a lot. Its good training, and his list is much much scarier. 

[ceejlekabeejle 473]

The other day, I one shotted a full health Gozanti with an Arquittens. It was the only shot I could make that turn, and admittedly, I got lucky - I rolled a double hit and an accuracy. But I also had turbolaser reroute circuits and a concentrate fire command - added those in and took my hits up to 6. I accuracied the scatter, and did 4 damage. It didn't have a chance.

Yes, these were exceptional circumstances, but they're not that rare. Anything that can fire at least four red dice can do it without too much difficulty, and that's not exactly an exclusive club. And anything with some dice modifiability only has increased chances: I've done similar things with Home One and Jonus, and Intel Officers will always make your opponent sweat. It's not like those points are wasted if they don't bring a flotilla: Home One is a **** handy title, whatever you're firing at. Plus, if you don't get it on the first round of shooting, you're can usually do enough damage to do kill it in the second. Flotillas are flimsy, even at range, so long as you can block that scatter.

Usually it's less a question of whether the flotilla can be killed, and more a question of why you'd want to kill it. OK, it's an activation, but most of the time it just makes far more sense to kill the big ship than the filler, and your opponents had to make sacrifices for that activation. Of course, you have the lifeboat flotilla, and don't get me wrong, I find those as irritating as the next man. And the kind of player who brings one is also the kind of guy who's going to stick it far away from the battle, trundling along one side of the board. But in that situation, it doesn't really matter whether it has a scatter or not; unless you brought a flotilla killer, there's no point chasing it.

TL;DR - You can reliably kill flotillas at range if you want to, and I don't think getting rid of the scatter would make a difference.

[Tokra 2,147]

6 minutes ago, ceejlekabeejle said:

The other day, I one shotted a full health Gozanti with an Arquittens. It was the only shot I could make that turn, and admittedly, I got lucky - I rolled a double hit and an accuracy. But I also had turbolaser reroute circuits and a concentrate fire command - added those in and took my hits up to 6. I accuracied the scatter, and did 4 damage. It didn't have a chance.

Yes, you can oneshot a flotilla with 4 red dice. That is out of question. But it is really rare (unless your nick is anothermorat ).
You need two accuracy and two double hits or one accuracy and three double hits to kill one for sure. Or you try with the crit instead of a double hit.
One blue and two black dice can as work as well.

But we are not talking about the rare cases where it happens. We talk about the normal rolls (1 blank, 1 hit, 1 accuracy, 1 crit/double hit).
Or the perfect roll, against a non flotilla (3x double hit + 1x crit) .

[OgRib 388]

3 hours ago, thecactusman17 said:

For one, I played our All Out Offensive on Sunday.  At the end of the game, the Rebels had only one combat ship on the table (a running Admonition)  but had at least 5 GR-75s.  By and large, this was due to the fact that there were few, if any, ships that could actually push damage through.  Imperials had 2 gozantis, an ISD, and a Raider.  On numerous occasions, multiple ships fired on GR-75s  and Gozantis around the board but could not actually get damage through in any form of consistent manner.  Only flotillas that had been tapped as priority targets or which received high damage with accuracy results died.  Nearly everything else survived.

I spent this morning playing against Tokra's excellently played Gozanti swarm in the Vassal Freshman tournament.  Hats off to Tokra for playing his fleet well.  However, it should be noted that not a single Gozanti in that game died to dice attacks.  Instead, most of the damage and the only kill to all 9 flotillas on the board was due to ramming.  Even with Accuracy results, my options at range were to either accuracy the scatter and hope something was left after the evade, or go for the evade and nothing took damage.

This was just one extreme example of an issue I've seen in nearly every list that features the current flotilla selection.  It is basically impossible to damage them reliably without dedicating a warship that may be multiple times their cost to the task.  This is just the current under-costing issue of Flotillas seen from the opposite side.  And it's an aspect that could be fixed with the least impact to the rest of the game balance.  When Flotillas were announced, the excitement wasn't just about a cheap ship.  It was about a cheap ship that was infinitely more durable than the more heavily armed ships around it.  The Gozanti is, for example, vastly more likely to survive a point blank shot from a VSD or Ackbar'd Assault Frigate than a Raider, Gladiator, or CR90.  If no dice roll an accuracy (and on red dice that's a 1/8 chance) there won't be any damage at all.  If the range is extended to long, the lack of blue dice to provide accuracy almost eliminates the threat of damage and an evade reduces any that get through further still.

The H9s are definitely a potential help, but they are a patch that only affects one type of target.  My suggestion is to keep Flotillas viable at range, but not invulnerable.  The scatter is costed too low on a  ship that is already designed to avoid fights entirely.

Now if the scatter should stay, it should be a premium option.  Place it instead on the combat variants of each flotilla, which will force them to draw into medium range where the Accuracy is more likely to occur.  This bump in price would make a better trade for the ability and reduce the overwhelming flotilla spam.  At least placing it on the combat variants would somewhat justify needing to take out a Flotilla with a massive bomber strike or combat ship rush.  Lightly armed transports shouldn't be tougher to damage than fully-armored and shielded warships.

 

Admonition and 5+ GR75 vs an ISD, Raider and 2 Gozanti?  You don't mention fighters but it looks like the Empire won that match anyway.

You talk about the 1/8 accuracy on a single red die, but who rolls single dice and expects to get damage through on anything with defense tokens?  If you're rolling three red dice at a flotilla the chance of an accuracy on one of those dice is 33% - that isn't bad. 

 

 

 

 

[Reinholt 1,719]

The problem is not that flotillas are not killable. They are very, very killable. Use an MC30 torpedo with H-9 and OE. This is a near guaranteed kill (over 90% probability). Easy!

 

The problem is that you are now speding 75 points and 3+ game turns to chase down an 18 point flotilla on the back board edge going sideways at speed 1. They are all spread out, also, so you can get to the next one at turn 6 or so.

 

Thus, you dedicate disproportionate force and the other guy still has the activation advantage for 3 turns leading into the engagement, which is when it matters the most.

 

Tokra's point is dead on: if you play that game, you have already lost. You will dedicate twice the resources to kill, essentially, a handful of squadrons worth of points and the rest of the other fleet will shred your smaller remainder and have activation advantage doing it.

 

It's not that flotillas can't be killed. It's that they can't be killed efficiently or quickly enough for their points cost so they are a dominant choice, and that the best counter to flotillas is to take more of your own.

[Ardaedhel 10,840]

4 hours ago, thecactusman17 said:

there were few, if any, ships that could actually push damage through.

There's your trouble.

You're telling me that in a 1500-point fleet, after presumably playing at least 4 or 5 rounds in which you saw that the other team had a bunch of flotillas, your team didn't bring anything capable of handling them? That sounds like it's very much on you.

 

7 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

It's not that flotillas can't be killed. It's that they can't be killed efficiently or quickly

 

This. Though of course I take a less apocalyptic view since even the very extreme three of them takes up all of 13% of my fleet. But that's another discussion.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Ardaedhel

[Tokra 2,147]

5 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

The problem is not that flotillas are not killable. They are very, very killable. Use an MC30 torpedo with H-9 and OE. This is a near guaranteed kill (over 90% probability). Easy!

Ever tried it on long or medium range? Or against a player 1 with more activations? I guess you will withdraw your "easy" .
 

And as you said, you are wasting so many points, and a ship that could do so much more on other places on the battlefield, with hunting down a flotilla. So it might be not even worth it.

 

[OgRib 388]

But why even care about a flotilla that is running away if it's on the back edge of the map?

The only two useful things it can be doing from far away from the battle is relay squad commands or empty activation (both possibly also as a commander lifeboat)

 

If my opponent leaves 18 points (or more) out of the fight then (if I command well) I can have a local advantage in points brought to bear in the fight.  If he is utilizing relay then that is 15-30 points invested in relay squads that also have heavy.  I should encourage all my opponents to invest in ships that run away from the battle.

[ceejlekabeejle 473]

48 minutes ago, Tokra said:

Yes, you can oneshot a flotilla with 4 red dice. That is out of question. But it is really rare (unless your nick is anothermorat ).
You need two accuracy and two double hits or one accuracy and three double hits to kill one for sure. Or you try with the crit instead of a double hit.
One blue and two black dice can as work as well.

But we are not talking about the rare cases where it happens. We talk about the normal rolls (1 blank, 1 hit, 1 accuracy, 1 crit/double hit).
Or the perfect roll, against a non flotilla (3x double hit + 1x crit) .

But it needn't be as rare as you suggest, nor need it take place in a single turn. It might be rare to naturally roll two accuracy and two double hits, but a number of upgrades, commands combos will allow you to guarantee at least part of that dice pool: H9s, sensor teams, Home One and Jonus can all give you an accuracy, and Intel Officer can force the discard, whilst TRCs or Screed can give you the damage, and things like DTTs, Vader and concentrate fire commands/tokens only increase your odds. Besides which, if you can't take it out in a single turn, you can do all of the above again, and there aren't many flotillas that can take that kind of punishment twice.

I wasn't trying to suggest it was easy to kill flotillas at distance, but that's kind of the point of them - they're meant to be small but annoying. My point was that there's no reason you can't reliably target them, even at long range, with the kind of dice manipulation that's useful in any situation.

[Reinholt 1,719]

22 minutes ago, OgRib said:

But why even care about a flotilla that is running away if it's on the back edge of the map?

The only two useful things it can be doing from far away from the battle is relay squad commands or empty activation (both possibly also as a commander lifeboat)

 

If my opponent leaves 18 points (or more) out of the fight then (if I command well) I can have a local advantage in points brought to bear in the fight.  If he is utilizing relay then that is 15-30 points invested in relay squads that also have heavy.  I should encourage all my opponents to invest in ships that run away from the battle.

 

Why care about the ships that let me not activate any of my ships until, if you are running a 4 activation fleet, I have been able to force your entire fleet into my guns? This is the engine that makes a list like the @Caldias or @Ardaedhel MC30 spam work, and work well enough to place in the top of Regionals.

 

This seems self-evident; my point is what this situation with activations does is incentivize everyone to start every list with stall flotillas. <20% of points or not, they are now an auto-include. Put differently: now over the past 15 games I have played, flotillas have been in 100% of them, represent over 50% of the total ships by count, and no game has featured less than 4 of them combined.

 

My issues is they are a dominant tactic for which they are also their own counter. It's flotillas all the way down.

 

Edit: I'm not saying it is unfair; everyone can do it. I am saying it has made turtle / delay the dominant tactic, which is boring. Also I can't type and had to fix typos that make me look like an illiterate drunk moose.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Reinholt

[Madaghmire 7,274]

I built a long range flotilla swatting fleet back when they first dropped that swatted the shiz outta some flotes. Its not...good. But it really, really punishes flotillas. Looked like this;

Home Wonders 
Author: Madaghmire

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 395/400  

Commander: General Madine

Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Solar Corona

 

MC80 Command Cruiser (106 points)
-  Home One  ( 7  points) 
-  Skilled First Officer  ( 1  points) 
-  Engine Techs  ( 8  points) 
-  Electronic Countermeasures  ( 7  points) 
-  X17 Turbolasers  ( 6  points) 
-  Leading Shots  ( 4  points) 
= 139 total ship cost

 

[ flagship ] GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
-  General Madine  ( 30  points) 
-  Bright Hope  ( 2  points) 
-  Comms Net  ( 2  points) 
= 52 total ship cost

 

MC80 Battle Cruiser (103 points)
-  Lando Calrissian  ( 4  points) 
-  Gunnery Team  ( 7  points) 
-  Quad Turbolaser Cannons  ( 10  points) 
-  Spinal Armament  ( 9  points) 
= 133 total ship cost

 

1 Tycho Celchu ( 16 points) 
5 A-Wing Squadrons ( 55 points)

Edited April 12, 2017 by Madaghmire