Imperial commander review: Grand Admiral Thrawn

Let's finish up the big upgrades of wave 7 by covering the Blue Man Group Grand Admiral Thrawn.

Thrawn performing "It's Gonna Be Me" back in his boy band days

Imperial squadron review: Mandalorian Gauntlet Fighter

As I come back around to start wrapping up the new Imperial things introduced in wave 7, let's talk about the Mandalorian Gauntlet Fighter.

It looks cool, anyways.

Eric updates 12/30

Fleet building 201 articles update for today.

• Basic fleet building 201 article.
• Very minor upkeep.
• Big Heavy fleet building 201
• Removed references to the Banned Trinity of officers.
• Lots of new hyperlinks and generally trimming things down.
• Heavy Squadron fleet building 201
• Minimal editing
• MSU fleet building 201
• Removed the Banned Trinity reference.
• Included discussion of your opponent using pass tokens.
  
• MSU's death due to pass tokens has been greatly exaggerated, is the short version.
  
• Generally streamlined a bit, as I tend to over-discuss MSU.

Next update will be Thrawn (sure?) and the Mandalorian Gauntlet (boo). I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel for updating articles to 1.5.

Fleet building 201: Swarm/MSU

The last of the 3 archetype build articles, MSU, took a while to write initially due to turbulence from wave 7. Armada 1.5 introducing pass tokens has been a similar experience with the newest update, but MSU is alive and well. Arguably in much better shape than it once was.

As always, a quick warning that I'll be making a lot of generalizations in order to communicate points - once you've gotten a lot of experience with a particular archetype, you'll be able to identify circumstances in which some of the generalizations can be bent or broken with the right tactics or fleet-building.

This is the start of an MSU fleet leaning hard on Intensify Firepower, right here.

Fleet building 201: Heavy Squadron

Time for the second installment of the fleet archetype building series: Heavy Squadron. Just like the previous installment on Big Heavy, I feel the need to mention that for purposes of this article there will be a lot of generalizations that will not hold up in 100% of situations, especially with fleets made or used by experienced players who know when and how to bend or break some of the guidelines.

Just the first deployed ace squadron of many, courtesy of Admiral Sloane.

Fleet building 201: Big Heavy

Vader knows where it's at.

Big Heavy
As mentioned in the header article, Big Heavy is looking to stress the inherent strengths of heavier combat ships (medium and large ships focusing on direct confrontation). Heavy combat ships have high-value activations that can get a lot done. For the amount of space they take up on the table, they can throw an awful lot of dice, and for the most part they can take a lot of punishment, especially if the enemy is unable to gang up on them to overheat their defense tokens. Heavy ships that are only taking one or two attacks each round are in most cases effectively immortal, especially with the right defensive tech; conversely, light combat ships taking one or two attacks each round are going to be destroyed if they can't get out of trouble and soon. A Big Heavy fleet is looking to quickly destroy heavy-hitting opposition that threatens its heavy ships and then hopes to spend the rest of the game casually gobbling up the less-threatening survivors.

Fleet building 201: Archetype guidelines

In my earlier article on basic fleet-building, I mentioned 3 basic types of "skew" fleets: Big Heavy, Swarm/MSU, and Heavy Squadron. John and I have since written articles on dealing with those types of fleets (as well as more specific components of fleets that can be troublesome), but I've had some requests for articles in reverse: namely, some idea as to how to build and use those particular types of fleets. That seems pretty reasonable, so let's proceed with Fleet building 201, an article series where I'll cover some guidelines for building and using fleets based around those three basic archetypes.

 Article updates for today

• Anti-flotillas
• Minor updates - Avenger isn't a thing anymore and you can't double-ram with Engine Techs.
• Anti-conga lines
• Extremely minor upkeep. Article was still in good shape.
• Overlapping
• Added new section from the RRG about applying overlap damage before completing the maneuver.
• Removed sections referring to old Intel and Engine Techs.
• Anti-MSU
• Consistently referred to fleet archetype as "MSU" instead of "swarm" as it's more consistent with the lingo most of us use and doesn't cause confusion with the Swarm keyword.
• It still gets a little confusing when an MSU fleet includes a cheaper medium based ship as then it's no longer all small units but whatever.
  
• Discussion of pass tokens in 1.5.
• Otherwise shortened, edited, hyperlinks, the usual. I write a lot about MSU because it's something I'm very experienced with, but it can get to be a bit much.
  

Fighting Fleets: Swatting Swarms/MSU

Some of the most common types of questions John and I see online about Armada come down to "my local meta seems to be dominated by (insert archetype) fleet and I'm struggling to beat it, what do I do?" With that said, John fired off the first article about how to handle well-defended large ships that require a lot of firepower to bring down. I'd like to discuss another major archetype which in many ways is the opposite of a fleet with one or more tough large ships, the MSU swarm-of-small-ships fleet. I've run MSU fleets competitively for a few years now, so it's something I know pretty well. It's not unbeatable by any means, but without an understanding of how it works it can feel that way sometimes.

Cue the Aquabats' Shark Fighter, please!

Overlapping, or "demolition derby in space"

Despite becoming a Chicagolander through osmosis occurring over more than a decade, I was born and raised in northwestern rural Illinois (where my high school mascot is a pretzel) and let me tell you city slickers that demolition derbies are awesome. Just a whole bunch of the most junked up barely functional cars all smashing into each other and driving around with pieces hanging off and smoke blowing around as they throw mud all over the place and get into loud crashes while the crowd screams until there's only one quasi-functional car left standing. If you've never been to a demolition derby, I highly recommend it. And with that said, on to the article...

Oh man, 137 is really getting taken to Pound Town.

Fighting Fleets: Cancelling Conga Lines

It's time for another installment of "Fighting Fleets," this one a bit shorter than the others (I'll get to the why of that shortly!).

Anyways, let's discuss the nefarious conga line!

I said nefarious, come on guys! That's just adorable.

Fighting Fleets: Flushing Flotillas

First off, I'm back and thanks to all the folks who wished me and the missus well on the birth of my son! He was born November 13th in the early morning and we're super glad to have him. Mom and baby are both doing great and the lack of any serious complications has been wonderful.

Look at this big bald doof holding this weird thing with a blue hat.

Speaking of small things and awkward transitions, it's time to talk about flotillas. Specifically, how to get rid of them (wow, this transition is weird and kind of sinister if you think about it too hard). Let's get to the plastic spaceships part!

Eric 1.5 article updates 12/28

First note: there wasn't really much to update when it came to personal advice style articles (like the articles on tilting/improving) and the articles on FFG tournaments. Neither have changed any (the advice or the tournament formats, plus who knows what AMG tournaments are going to look like once we get out of the Plague Times), so I just left them be.

 Here's today's achievements as I get through wave 6:

•  Quasar Fire
• Removed Brunson as a recommendation as she's too pricey now.
• Removed references to Intel.
• What was Pryce doing in this article? I CAST YOU OUT, FOUL SPIRIT!
  
• Editing/hyperlinks/the usual.
• Commands rules article
• Updated page number references.
• If the RRG gets updated frequently, keeping the page numbers right is going to be a nightmare.
• Added new reminder based on new RRG text that effects that provide dials (like Thrawn) allow you to tokenize them upon receiving them.
  
• Boarding teams
• Cleared out the remaining Rebel unique boarding teams as John already ported those over to the Rebel specific upgrades.
• Otherwise, some minor upkeep.
• Admiral Sloane
• Removed Avenger references.
• Cleaned up and shortened the article a bit. Sloane is still good but has the same balancing act as before of trying to get enough carrier capacity, squadrons, and actual combat ships to make her shtick all come together. She can competently run Interceptors and Fighters better than any other Imperial commander but if you're not careful you can get an even larger burden on your carriers.

Imperial commander review: Admiral Sloane

Time to finally finish off the Imperial wave 6 articles with a review of Admiral Sloane! Once John gets his Hammerhead article up, we'll be completely done with wave 6.

Thanks for the sweet later-in-the-EU art, wookieepedia!

Boarding team upgrades (weapon team + offensive retrofit)

Given the unique nature of multiple-upgrade-slot upgrades, it felt appropriate to give them their own articles rather than trying to include them here and there in the other upgrade articles. Hence, this will be where all the boarding teams will be discussed, which are the upgrades that consume both a weapon team and offensive retrofit slot. Let's get to it!

Pictured: Vader in the middle of discarding the Raymus Antilles upgrade card.

Commands in Armada

Following the success of the attack sequence article, I wanted to cover something else in Armada that tends to produce a lot of headaches: everything involving commands, particularly when different commands are possible in one activation or when a token and dial are used together. This element of the game can be confusing for the same reason the attack sequence can be confusing - it's not really spelled out in detail in the learn to play book and it incorporates elements from several different parts of the rules. Anyways, let's begin!

The cut will be done in moments, you may commence your article.

Imperial ship review: Quasar Fire Cruiser-Carrier

All right, let's talk about quasars. You see, a quasar is a supermassive black hole and its giant accretion disk (basically a huge spiraling traffic jam of matter that's all headed in) that reaches incredible levels of heat and brightness due to the  nearly unfathomable speed the matter is traveling as it plummets into the black hole. Thanks, Astronomy 101! No, seriously, Astronomy 101 was an awesome class and I don't regret taking it.

One day you too can be an artist who gets to draw something this cosmically awesome.

Except that's not actually what we're talking about, we're talking about the wave 6 Imperial ship, the Quasar Fire Cruiser-Carrier. That's a mouthful, so from here on out it's just the Quasar.

Eric article updates 12/26

Boxing Day updates to the Imperial officers article!

Imperial Officers

• Admiral Chiraneau got much better now that Intel got nerfed and his section was completely redone.
• Captain Brunson mostly rewritten because oof 9 points.
• Director Krennic improved a bit because he works well with Gunnery Team now.
• 1.0 Avenger and Yavaris and Intel references removed or updated.
• GOVERNOR PRYCE DELETED.
• If I could bottle this feeling and sell it I'd be rich.
• Seriously, the worst card in the game, get lost.
  
• Instructor Goran is better now that Intel has been nerfed but he's still a reactive squad-based 7 point officer. Doesn't mean he's complete garbage but be careful with him.
• Otherwise editing, hyperlinks, the usual.
  

Imperial officers

Line up you mongrels, it's time for an Imperial officer inspection! Shine those boots, polish your rank badge, suck in that gut, and stand up straight!

Jerjerrod is particularly unimpressed with you, Mutton Chops McGee!

Offensive retrofits: I'm offensive, how about you?

Let's talk about offensive retrofits!

Well it's not a defensive retrofit, so you're correct!

Eric minor Christmas Eve updates

 A few quick updates...

• Wave 5/Corellian Conflict objectives articles
• Red
• Blockade Run writeup shortened. Don't take this unless you want to fight in a bowling alley (the kind of ships that thematically run blockades sure don't).
• Otherwise editing and clarifying.
• Blue
• Basic maintenance, editing, etc.
• Yellow
• Fixed a typo!
• Removed mention of Avenger interaction with Planetary Ion Cannon because Avenger is terrible now.
• Offensive retrofits
• ATN no longer counters Intel.
• Hardened Bulkheads no longer combine with Engine Techs for easy double rams on small ships.
• Otherwise cleaned up this and that, added some hyperlinks, shortened a few things just a smidge.

Yellow (defense) objectives, wave five

It's the final countdown article about objectives!

Who am I kidding, it's always The Final Countdown in my heart.

Blue (navigation) objectives, wave five

On to the 6th of my 7 total objective articles!

Red (assault) objectives, wave 5

Let's get to those wave 5 objectives!

Oh boy, here I go objective-article writing again!

john 12/23

Fighting whales article updated - added in the obvious "bring your own whale" if you want to; separated the "what about SSDs and Starhawks" part into the end.

Admiral Raddus entrance music was procedural. I also didnt click on the links, so, let's hope youtube hasn't taken those down!

Building your community - procedural, nothing major. I still miss community and our Armada community; stupid COVID.

Toryn Farr - procedural, mainly just added links to everything.  none of the math changed, haha

hammerheads - added in a paragraph that they're good against squadron damage/alphas, and a bit more about discarding your defense tokens to kill your opponent if you need to.

And i'm through 2017! Ugh, my new years resolution is to not need to update these articles again for a while.

Hammerheads: Costco Brand Raiders!

Yeesh, what a title.  Anyways, today's topic is Hammerheads.

You mean me?

No, not the 90s cartoon Street Sharks (which I suspect in hindsight was NOT totally "Jawesome" but was actually a mediocre Ninja Turtles rip-off, which was in actuality a good Daredevil rip-off) but the Hammerhead Corvette, the newest ship from the Rebellion.  I pray this is the last Street Sharks joke I make, but we all know me, so I make no promises (further side note: one of the Street Sharks always had on rollerblades, because 1995 or whatever.  He later played drums professionally.)

Toryn Farr: A Rebel Haiku

Much better than Swarm

Imperial jealousy

Dagger through their squads

Haikus are cooler than regular love letters, anyways

"I remember when this show was about community college" - Building Your Community

So ages ago, I promised a way to build a Rebel fleet that was just like Community, Dan Harmon's original show with intense fans who got way into a well-written, hilarious series that rewarded frequent watching and was unfairly canceled before its time.

And now I get Pickle Rick t-shirts from edgelord teenagers, but I'm NOT BITTER!

Well, we're not doing that today.  Today we're talking about how to build your very own Armada Community.

Theme Music and You: How to PROPERLY Play Admiral Raddus

If there's one thing in life and Armada that's important, it's showmanship.  That's right, the most important part of your Armada game is looking good and playing while doing so (Yeah, we're gonna get ludicrous here.  Expect regular John to only appear in these parentheticals).  We all remember the games we badly lost or crazy won, but how often do we remember how GOOD we looked doing so? Not NEARLY enough.  Today, we're going to discuss the one part of Admiral Raddus that no one has yet: how to properly make an entrance.

Better music than Mariano.  Come at me, Yankees Bros!

Fighting Fleets: Whale Hunting

Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee!

Alright, so Eric and I are going to start talking about fighting specific builds.  I volunteered to take on taking on an ISD, but let's talk whaling in general.

JOHN 12/22 -

i've updated the support teams...ish. Engine Techs's description is updated, but I need to get the new picture in there when i'm not using my fiancee's computer (i'm not learning the Mac version of paint if I can just wait a week and do it next monday).  I also should get my laptop fixed, but that's work for this upcoming post-christmas week.  Anyways, i'll have that picture updated before the new year.  Anyone using that in a tournament in the next 8 days who doesn't remember that, uhhh, good luck?  FCT updated to get my points across clearer (and organize the yav part of it).  Medical Team and Projection Experts updated to include some fun CIS interactions.

Defensive Retrofits, ECM, the same deal.  Again, it's a whole Mac thing to which i'm either getting a new laptop or mine fixed next week.  Text is fine though.  Mostly procedural, though I did try to justify Redundant Shields some more (though you still probably shouldn't use it, guys).

generic officers - clarity, some elimination of redundancy.  Strat Ad is banned, to which I have a picture with the word "Banned" stamped across it....at home, haha.

Rebel officers - bail is banned and I point you to his commander card.  art update next week.  more minor edits, basically.  I also updated walex to say "use with agate and starhawk!" which, uh, yup.

Leia commander - updated mainly for clarity, pics next week.  And the ending gif too.

fleet commands - a bit of discussion about WHICH command to choose and how, some minor updates. I don't think Shields to Maximum is bad, but it's really the least interesting of them all.  However, maybe some weird Wat Tambor fleet?

Fleet Command ACTUAL Post!

Well, now that the Cymoon has been spoiled and Imperials can take Fleet Commands (grumble grumble grumble) I've turned the Pelta's fleet commands section into its own page! Hit the jump for all the fleet commands.

Know Your Enemy/Commander's Corner: Leia Organa

I am disgruntled.  

Hi, John! I'm the call and response questionnaire that will let you address the audience! Why are you so disgruntled?

I WAS having a pleasant Friday. Work is going well, I got to see the reveal of the new Wave 7 Commanders and new ISDs for my Imp friends, I see we Rebels have a ship of some type coming out (seriously FFG, where's my news? And can you give me the secret list that will let me win Worlds and get to design a Commander card like JJ did to get Thrawn? I'm not sure WHAT the Rebel leader I have will get, but it'll be great, for realsies)

I was reading the forums on a break and then I saw it, several times.
"Thrawn is clearly better than Leia."
"Leia is overcosted and not good."
"Leia's a bad Commander."

Oh, it is ON, NOW!

Rebel Officers!

Eric's listed the Imperial officers and gotten them all together in some sort of lineup to be inspected by Lord Vader and assumedly choked for failure.  Better get the Rebel Officers together too!

Ahsoka Tano, Lando Calrissian, Wicket the Ewok, Mace Windu, and Chewbacca

Generic Officer Friends!

Let's talk about the officers who can work for anyone.  These mercenaries Officers sell their services to the highest bidder, like the scum they are both sides, and both sides can make use of them.

The Best Defensive Retrofits....

Well, it's not a good Offensive Retrofit, I can tell you that.  Let's hit the jump and take a look!

There was a time the Bears Defense actually struck fear into the hearts of men.  I miss 2005.

Support Team Upgrades

Support Teams! That one slot with the face that isn't your Officer slot!

What's that Ma'am? You say Demolisher is OP? Yes, that is troubling, please remain on the line.

john 12/19 and 12/20

Updated Madine.  Like 2 sentences about him, he still hasn't changed since the Raddus nerf.  The Evade change helps him alright, but he's still kinda outclassed by Raddus. I wish he was better or even had a points reduction, but we get what we get.

Pelta - a bit more about how it's a good ship, as much as us and Steel Strategy keep proselytizing to you all.  some more on how to run it, but the builds are still similar.

Sato - procedural, no major changes since he only changed points.  Oh, i was a lot more hesitant on recommending you use Malee, because, well, (gestures at Malee).

i'm traveling the rest of the day, but should be able to hit more of these tonight (maybe) and the rest of this week.

Eric article updates 12/20

 Newest batch: I've reached wave 5!

• Arquitens.
• Minor editing.
• Added a salvo build with Reactive Gunnery.
• Updated Baby's First Flagship with Reeva and Advanced Projectors.
• Moff Jerjerrod.
• Minor edits.
• Lambda
• Minor edits.
• TIE Defender.
• Moderate edits. Some upkeep for 1.5 changes and mentioning that they've improved overall due to the ace restrictions.
• Decimator
• Minor edits.
• TIE Phantom
• More minor edits. The wave 5 squads were already in a good place.
• Weapon teams
• Major overhaul on Gunnery Team.
• NO YOU CAN'T USE ADVANCED GUNNERY WITH 1.5 GUNNERY TEAM, STOP TRYING PLEASE.
  
• Moderate overhaul on Ordnance Experts.
• Removed some of the discussion on which dice to reroll and how aggressively to reroll as that was an artifact of when Ordnance Experts worked on potentially every black dice in your pool. I still discuss when to reroll single hits if you don't have 2 blanks, but there isn't a need for as much math to prove my point.

Weapon team upgrades: the best defense is a good offense

Let's talk weapon teams! One quick note, the boarding teams (weapon team+offensive retrofit) upgrades are elsewhere, but otherwise all the weapon team upgrades are here.

"So... we're just kind of hoping they'll fly right in front of our window and otherwise we do nothing?"
"Yep."
"Man, these Imperial union jobs are great!"

Imperial squadron review: TIE Phantom

Wow, we're at the final wave 5 Imperial squadron much sooner than I anticipated! It's time to cover the TIE Phantom.

We've made all kinds of improvements, like changing the billiards ball to a soda can!

Imperial squadron review: VT-49 Decimator

We're trucking right along through the Imperial wave 5 squadrons, which brings us to what is effectively a well-armed Imperial space truck, the VT-49 Decimator!

The segue was as bad as this picture is sweet!

Imperial squadron review: TIE Defender

Continuing our wave 5 Imperial squadron reviews, we have reached the TIE Defender.

Okay so hear me out, what if TIE Fighters had an extra wing and also its wings were each two triangles and those triangles had lasers?

Imperial squadron review: Lambda-class Shuttle

We're finally here at the wave 5 Imperial squadron reviews!

"It's just a model" (or in this case, an illustration, but it's still nice)

Imperial ship review: Arquitens Light Cruiser

We finally reached wave 5! We did it! And so now it's time to talk about the Imperial ship from wave 5, the Kittens Light Cruiser.

Cute and cuddly, sure, but kitten claws will cleave through solid steel!

Know Your Enemy/Commander's Corner: Jun Sato

So I've had a change of heart in Wave 6 with a few things.  Namely, I've had a change of heart about getting Sato to work for you.  He's not the EASIEST commander to work with (I will fully admit that some of this may be my inexperience with him), but he can be life-changing if you do him right.  That is one mighty big if, but let's get into it.

His frustration echoes mine when I often try to play him!

Alpha Beta Charlie PELTA!

We slowly move our way into wave 5.  We, being a royal we, as Eric already did his bit on Jerry and the Arquitens.  Today, we hit the Pelta, and hopefully I can get Sato soon enough.  When I.... get to him.  (He's hard to write, OK!) I can promise I'll have him done before Wave 6 shows up (I'm running out of new stuff to write about, haha!) but for today, the Pelta.

The most divisive ship in the Rebellion!

Commander's Corner/Know Your Enemy: Crix Madine

Apologies for the lateness of my getting this up, but it's been a busy weekend.  My sister graduated and got her PhD, so I attended that (and read 2 different X-wing books, because I don't care about 1299/1300 people attending that thing, sorry).  In any case, let's get this Commander review started with Crix Madine, the Rebellion's General from Wave 4.  Then onwards to wave 5!

It was 1983! Everyone's hair looked like that!

john 12/17 and 12/18

GR75s - mainly procedural, I emphasize a bit more "stop just starting with 2 GRs," and I still refer you to Eric's article (thanks for all that work!) on the basics of flotillas.

Cracken - procedural, mainly, some updated discussion about how he differs from Mothma and how speed 3 can result in predictability.

Turbos - HTT rewrite, it's takeable now! QTCs really shouldnt be! Fancy pictures for the updated cards!

Lib - removed some of the engine tech interactions and had to change up a few of the builds.  Bail is dead, long live Agate.

LMC80: Battle Cruise Crazy (Just Be Glad It's Him, Not You)

Well, we're on our way into Wave IV now, as we pretend that Wave III and Wave IV are separate.... and that they demand the majesty of Roman Numerals.  Let's hit the OTHER 8 health Rebel ship, the LMC80!

The ANGRIEST lawn dart

Turbolaser Upgrades: Or "Knowing is Half the Battle!"

The best way of improving your offense/firepower/dice rolling: It's turbolaser time!

Notice the lack of Green lasers here.  Clearly Imperial ships shouldn't be shooting at all! It's in the graphic!

Imperial commander review: Admiral Konstantine

Let's finish off wave 4 by discussing the commander that comes bundled with the Interdictor, Admiral Konstantine.

Or "Pouty-lips Frown-stache" as he may be known (he's not).

Eric 1.5 updates 12/18

 Updates for today. So much stuff to do!

• How to use black dice article.
• Minor updates, some editing, added some hyperlinks.
• Ion cannons
• High Capacity Ion Turbines got even worse because it competes for Modification slots with its 1.0 buddy H9 Turbolasers.
• Even then, it was a fairly niche build mostly seen on ISD-Is.
• Ion Cannon Batteries got better with 1.5 focusing more on command tokens and command-triggered upgrades.
• New Leading Shots at 6 points.
• MS-1s got a little better but not much.
• NK-7s are still terrible.
• Overload Pulse Avenger interaction discussion removed. Thankfully.
• Interdictor
• Between Brunson getting pricier and ECMs needing repair tokens to ready, I honestly feel like it's a matter of meta and preference now between Brunson and Tua/ECM. Both options are 9 points. The Interdictor title readying ECMs for free is a nice touch, so I lean Tua nowadays.
• Combat Interdictor is still the worst ship in the game. Yay!
• Konstantine
• New Konstantine, new article. Substantial overhaul here.
• I'm still not sure Konstantine is actually worth using but he's much less bad than he was in 1.0.
• Armada peripherals
• Minor editing.
  

Gear up for battle: Armada peripherals for the player looking to upgrade their game and storage

Okay so you are getting familiar with Armada but you're still carrying your stuff around in the core set box and and you figure it's time to upgrade your game components and storage. Well I'm here for you! Welcome to my armory...

I'm pretty sure at least one of these launches Nerf balls.

Black dice: blowing up enemy ships for fun and profit!

Using black dice ships is one of the more difficult skill sets for newer Armada players to come to grips with (along with "how to squadron", but John's got you covered and then some on that topic). John and I have covered some of the elements on "how to black dice" in ship-review articles such as the Raider, Gladiator, and MC30 articles. We figured it would be useful to combine some of the all-purpose black-dice help into one article and given my love affair with black dice (its kind of my thing, just like squadrons are kind of John's thing) I volunteered as tribute.

In the grim darkness of the alternative future there are only children killing each other for entertainment and a socio-economic system that doesn't really make much sense when you sit down and think about it!

General Airen Cracken: Know Your Enemy/Commander's Corner

We continue Wave 3 with General Cracken, head of Rebel Intelligence.  Hit the jump and unleash the Cracken!

I was actually in the movie and this is the joke you open with? Ugh, I'm disappointed.

GR75s: We All Float Down Here

Let's start off our wave 3 "coverage" with the Rebel GR-75! Today's topic is covering what they do, and how to use them, and all that other stuff.  Fighting against them is another article, but for now: the first transport is away!

Hooray, John finally got to Wave 3!

Eric 12/16 and 12/17 article updates

Updates for the past two days:

• Fleet support
• A little editing and mostly bringing Slicer Tools up to date.
• It's still a good card but you need to be a lot more careful with how you use it.
• Gozantis
• The Minister Tua Electronic Countermeasures Slicer Tools Suppressor Gozanti build was cute, although not necessarily that great. Now that both of the big upgrades eat repair tokens to ready, it's not really viable anymore. 
• Possible substitutes exist but you're in much greater danger of "oops, that's my scatter" followed by the sound of comms static and a distant explosion.
  
• Bidding
• Minor upkeep.
• Attack sequence
• Added the new reminder bullet point from the RRG that you can attack engaged squadrons. Otherwise, nothing needed to be changed.
• General Tagge
• New version up.
• Fairly major overhaul of the discussion portion given there's more considerations for him right now what with the round choosing element.
  
• He still kinda sucks, but I think there's something there for someone determined to get him to work.
• That non-consecutive round requirement is the main culprit here and was totally unnecessary.
  
• Fleet building 101 basics of fleet building
• Minor editing, added some hyperlinks.

Fleet building 101: the basics of fleet building

First and foremost, I (Eric) am going to be moving into a new house this week so my availability is sketchy at best. I'm hoping to be able to get one more article in this week when I have some downtime but I make no promises. I'll do my best, though. On to the article!

John and I have been dancing around the topic of fleet building for a little while and I figured now that I'm caught up to wave 3 of the Imperial releases it's time to at least get the basic parameters established for fleet building. I'll do my best to explore the considerations that go into it at higher levels but this is not an exhaustive guide. Everyone makes fleets differently and so if you're successful and your process doesn't follow my recommendations exactly, then good for you. Anyways, let's get to it, shall we?

Imperial commander review: General Tagge

All right let's finish off the Imperial side of teeny-tiny wave three with a commander review of General Tagge!

You may remember him as "the only person on the original Death Star that took the Rebels seriously."

The attack sequence and you!

I'm taking a break from writing up the General Tagge article to talk about the attack sequence and how it works. I've mentioned it in a few posts (primarily the ordnance upgrades article) and John recently covered it somewhat in his Ackbar article and it should probably all be in one place for easy reference. In short, the attack sequence in Armada can be very important and it's frequently misunderstood. Once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy, though, and I'd like to catch you up to speed and provide some examples!

This is how Imperials feel when Ackbar uses his add effect on an HMC80 broadside in step 3.

Bidding for initiative/Mailbox #3

We got a question from smashthedean in the comments of the Sunday Adepticon wrapup post. He asked:
"Speaking of point bids, this might be a better question for a future mailbag post, but... how much is too much??"

That's a fine question and a subject on which even experienced players can differ. I'll do my best to give my take on bids and what I would recommend:

All in on black! I've got Ordnance Experts if it comes up blank! What do you mean "you're not making any sense"?

John 12/16 Updates

Ackbarticle RE-UPDATED.  I added in the Salvo interaction and that whole deal.  Short answer: probably don't try to make a super-salvo Ackbar build?

H80 updated; Reactive Gunnery exists now! I also had to kill some of the "Bail is good on here ya know" advice.

Know Your Enemy/Commander's Corner: Admiral Gial Ackbar

That's right, he has a first name.  It's not just "Admiral."  And he's today's Know Your Commander!

And that's Carrie Fisher's daughter on the right there

Imperial ship review: Gozanti Cruisers

Waves 3 and 4 effectively came out at the same time, making them less of two separate waves, but we're obligated by FFG release terminology to treat them sequentially. Thus let's continue past wave 2 and into wave 3 with the Imperial Gozanti Cruisers!

The U-Haul of the Empire, now with mom's attic for extra overhead storage space!