Star Wars Armada: List Building and Squadrons
HERO here to talk about whether squadrons are worth it in Star Wars ARMADA. Let’s get started admirals:
Over the last couple of days, I’ve been building lists like crazy. I’ve been toying around with hundreds and hundreds of possible Rebel and Imperial lists and I’ve been having a lot of fun. However, one of the things I noticed myself struggling with is how to balance out my lists. I’m talking about not overloading on upgrades, taking squadrons, making sure that my list synergizes, and if the points I’m spending on something is worth it.
What GW Taught Me About Star Wars
Before I talk about anything, I want to talk about what I noticed about this game coming from a long history of GW games. For some reason, I feel that I’ve become very acclimated with the game already despite having only demoed it before with the starter set. I’ve played a lot of BFG and Epic 40K way back in the day, so I’m no stranger to games that are based on grand strategy. When doing research for Armada, I was able to soak in a ton of information from the official forums, youtube videoes, battle reports, and reading over all the different cards. It’s also nice having a few tournament-level players that I can bounce ideas off.
It might be the competitive gamer in me or something, but I noticed myself finding out all kinds of combos by just reading the cards. I really think it has something to do playing all those years of imbalanced GW games and all those years of competitive Warmahordes play. For example, there’s quite a few cards in Star Wars Armada that I view as completely points ineffective and there’s no reason for me to ever take them. I essentially judge a card or upgrade’s effectiveness based on a large number of things. For the most part, I look at the cost of the card and weigh in its overall effect on the battlefield: These can include how often will it come into play during the battle, how powerful will that effect be, and how easy can it be countered or nullified by the opponent. For example: Ackbar benefits all of my ships, it has a tremendous effect on the battlefield (bonus firepower), the power itself cannot be nullified by the opponent, and it happens often (every time I shoot, even more so with Gunnery Team). On the flip side, most of the one-use only cards are completely useless to me for a number of reasons. The first one is that it’s one-use only, the second is that it takes up a slot where something more permanent can be slotted, and the third, the power level of the effect is not powerful enough to swing the battle. I’m looking at you Lando.
I guess it’s safe to say that I only enjoy taking the cards that are good. I am a competitive player after all and I fully intend on competing in nearby events. However, I’m noticing a problem with how I’m designing and building lists. As some of you guys know, the recent Worlds winner won with 8 squads of A-Wings. That’s not to say that A-Wings are overpowered (they are very strong though), it’s just that against a list that’s not prepared to face against them, they completely dominate. The difficult part for me is striking a balance between the effectiveness of your fleet (which I consider your capital ships) and your squadron intake.
Squadrons in the Balance
So here lies the problem: Squadrons are not cheap. When you examine them strictly based on point values, you can see that they cost more than some of your most powerful upgrades. A single A-Wing squadron for example, costs as much as two X17 Turbolasers, which I would consider is one of the most cost effective upgrades in the game. However, a single A-Wing doesn’t have nearly the same of impact as equipping two of your capital ships with the X17s. This is when you have to accept the fact that the power of wings lie completely in numbers. Numbers because of the amount of dice that they can throw; taking into account their strength vs. enemy fighters and their overall effectiveness against enemy ships. This is when you start evaluating your wing choices a little more. If you choose to invest in a Rhymerball, how effective will this be if your opponent just happens to run a good amount of fighters? What if you have a bunch of fighters but he doesn’t have any bombers to fight at all? What if you brought a few squadrons but he brings a few more, or better quality fighters and you lose the air war? This irrevocably means that the points you spend on squadrons during list building can have either very positive or very negative effect to the rest of your fleet. This is due to the fact that points are a shared resource, one that has to be split or not split depending on whether you choose to invest in wings at all. It’s a gamble, and a very serious one at that.
I think the one thing that sticks out like a sore thumb for me is exactly how this gamble I just described fits into the big points picture. In order for you to take squadrons, you have to sacrifice points that could have been used for your capital ships (the main damage contributors to the battle). To make matters worse (or rather, more realistic), if you brought squadrons that are ineffective vs. your opponent, that means he has used his points much better than you and have most likely invested in better capital ships. This means that the game be very RPS (Rock-Paper-Scissors) based on lists alone, without players even putting their models on the table. The current World Champion knows what I’m talking about and has pretty much confirmed my thoughts on the matter.
So what now? Do I spend the points on squadrons, or do I just concentrate on making my fleet more powerful and hope I draw the right matchups? Think about this more, I will.
Squadrons – All or Nothing?
By now, I’m pretty convinced that the situation for squadrons is all or nothing with a few notable exceptions. If you look at my previous article, you’ll see exactly why I share similar views with the World Champ on the state of the meta in relation to squadrons. Maybe it’s a little early to start calling it a rule, but I think the argument in a points-based game, if you start investing points into something ineffective while your opponent invests into something effective, then it’s bad times for you.
There are some exceptions to this, and I’m talking about solo ships that add good value to your fleet that doesn’t take a lot of points investment. Maybe two ships if you’re feeling a little ambitious, but the idea of this is to keep your points low enough that you you feel comfortable enough to lose him. The gist of this is: If you lose him to an opponent taking more ships than him, that’s good because your opponent probably overcommitted on squadrons. If you don’t, then they go around causing problems for your opponents ships because he has no air cover, as has to waste time shooting at your one little tiny fighter.’
What you want for something like this is something that has good speed so it can react to the flow of battle, and be a threat to both fighters and capital ships. I would say that ideally, you should be looking at 4-speed and above ships. Even 3-speed ships are a little questionable because you will need something to keep pace with enemy fighters and bombers.
Squadrons in Detail
Let’s look at Rebels really quick:
Dash Rendar – 24 points, 6 hull, speed-4, shoots with 4 blues and a black at ships. Has Bomber and Rogue so it can move and attack during the Squadron Phase. Since he’s a hero, he has double Brace, and can re-roll 1 dice for each squadron or enemy ship at Range 1. Dash might be the best example of something that can intercept enemy bombers and perform well, while still able to harry enemy ships at dirt cheap prices.
Han Solo – 26 points, Grit and Rogue. Moves like a ship and has 2 blues and 2 blacks for anti-squadron, and a blue and black for anti-ship. Unfortunately, he does not have Bomber and only moves at 3, but has 7 hull and can stay around for a while.
Nym – 21 points of pure bomber. Doesn’t really perform vs. squadrons at all because of his crappy 2 blues, and his move 3 is a little questionable. However, if he rolls a blue crit on his blue and black anti-ship dice, he can choose and discard 1 of the ship’s defense tokens. That’s pretty freaking outrageous if you think about it; making him a huge threat to any ship in the game.
Luke Skywalker – 20 points of not bad, throws a black dice at ships and has the Bomber keyword. The main thing about Luke is that he does not care about the defender’s shields, and sporting 4 blues when shooting at fighters make him a pretty decent buy.
From here, you can look at double YT-2400s and double H-6 Bombers for 32 points. That’s starting to take you a little higher in price than I would like, since the objective is to make a noticeable impact for dirt cheap. To put this into perspective: Upgrading one of your capital ships to have Gunnery Team, X17, Intel Officer and ECM is 27 points. Do you see now why squadrons are very all or nothing?
So what about the Imperials?
Most of us already know about the Rhymer ball and what it can do to completely get around most ship defenses. Personally, I don’t think Rhymer and bombers is as good as they say, especially since they’re still bombers with Heavy.
Boba Fett – Despite only moving 3, he has 6 hull, 4 blues and and a blue and black for anti-ship. The Bomber keyword is what separates him from Han, and simply inflicting auto-damage to any squadron or ship within 1 when he activates in the Squadron Phase is always good.
Bossk – Throws out 4 black dice in AA, moves 3, has 7 hull for 23 points. That’s not bad at all, especially since he also throws out a blue and black for anti-ship. His ability allows you to add a free accuracy which can really increase his damage potential.
Darth Vader – I think Vader might be the best solo pilot on the Imperial side. Moves 4, 5 hull, has double Brace and a stunning ability: While attacking, each of your crit icons adds 1 damage to the damage total. Considering he’s throwing out 3 blues and a black, he can potentially do 5 damage to any fighter when he attacks, and 2 damage on any ship despite only having one black attack dice. The range and coverage that he can offer is fantastic, so I would definitely consider him.
After these guys, I would look at some cheap squadrons of TIE Advanced or TIE Bombers. They’re fast, can do some damage to ships and you don’t really care if they die. I mean, 3 bombers with black dice with Bomber at 27 points is not bad, but you might not want something that can just get murdered by a single Dash on patrol.
~What’s your take on squadrons admirals?
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