CGYSO turns 4 years old and wave 10 articles

 Four years ago we started CGYSO. Neat, huh?

Just in case you missed it, FFG released some very entry-level teaser articles for wave 10 yesterday:

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2021/1/25/heart-of-the-swarm/

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2021/1/25/republic-reinforcements/

We used to do hot take articles about things like this but then we became playtesters and we worry about accidentally tipping our hands too much and violating our NDAs. So links will have to do with two notes:

1. The Recusant arcs are super weird.
2. There was a price increase. Large ships $65, the Pelta at $40.

There is much nerd rage about price increases. Nobody really enjoys paying more for anything but the fact is they were quite likely overdue. I wouldn't be surprised to see AMG increase costs similar across the entire model line once they're officially at the helm after wave 10.

1.5 conjecture on squadron points changes

Okay so I'm back with the squadrons companion article to the earlier ship article. In short: we're likely to see points changes to ships and squadrons much like X-Wing and Legion have done and I'm making recommendations.

1.5 conjecture on ship points changes

Given we just caught up to 1.5 compliance in our articles (we were pretty meticulous but if you find something we missed hiding somewhere, please comment and let us know so we can fix it) and we're all caught up on Clone Wars content for now, things have quieted down a bit. Once it's safe to play some board games again I may well do a side project of discussing board games I like and would recommend but clearly that would never be the focus of CGYSO ever. We're here for Armada.

That said, it's been a little while since I did a straightforward opinion piece, and I wanted to discuss kinda where we're at and what's next.

"Somebody dropped a cherry in my jello salad and nobody is leaving this room until I know who it was!"

john 1/10 Updates

I finished my updates, having gone through LITERALLY every previous article I wrote!

Raddus - links updated, minor clarification on points.  I pulled out the bit saying "bring a HWK in your Rapid Launch Bays plan" since that doesnt work anymore.  You likely shouldnt use RLB anyways, but to each their own.

MC75 - links, some suggested build points changes and upgrade choices.

Painting article - updates, phrasing, correctly numbering things. I have plans for a "painting squadrons article" but gimme a bit on that. soon though.  And likely Clone Wars content!

Agate - links; no major updates on her.

Starhawk - links, builds, choices. Amity is more worth it now, that's for sure.

Vassal/TTS? choice article - minor formatting

entire RitR article series - no real updates; I edited some bits of the fleet building article to clarify the 2 unique squadrons per 200/250 point games bit.

What's next for me? Well, Vassal World Cup starts tomorrow, so I'll be getting some games in there.  Unsurprisingly, I took a Leia list.  Comments and details after pod rounds and we see where I end up with it all.

RitR Finale: The Future of RitR

Let's wrap this all up with something lighter here and my thoughts on this whole experiment.

You know, end of the day, I had a good time in this movie. I need to go rewatch it.

Rebellion in the Rim PENULTIMA: The Undiscovered Country

This was supposed to be Biggs's article, but he's busy with life and schooling, so I voluntold him I would do it.

Apparently in this example, I'm Kylo? Rage rage rage

Hit the jump and let's get pivotal! (pivotal, pivotal in a Cyndi Lauper voice)

Rebellion in the Rim Article 9,058: Actually Fighting

Alright, time to pew pew those lasers into your opponent, and as we all know the best way to have fun is through rules and understanding of them!

See, he gets it

Just click through and read the article.....

Rebellion in the Rim 6 Special: It's Not Easy Playing Green

The green objectives are the only way of getting unique ANYTHING in RitR, and today we're talking about them all.  What they say, how they work, and how to play them well.  Are we green?

ReyLo in the Rim 5 - A Good Day To Play Hard

Another Biggs guest post below! See you all next article - John

Let's go through a simple turn.  Like most things in Armada, turn order is important, and we'll see that come into play especially in the Management Phase.

There will be a turn going on in italics that you can follow along with as we go through the steps.

RitR 4: Picking Planets and the Goblet of Fire

We return, after my week of vacation, to RitR and picking planets to populate for your plans.

Enhance!

RitR 3: Mygeeto Drift - Team Work Makes the Teams Work

RitR 3: Mygeeto Drift - Team Work Makes the Teams Work

(Originally written by Biggs at Steel Strategy)
Welcome back to ReyLo in the Rim, where Geek, my Rey Palpatine, cooperates with me, the Ben Skywalker of his dreams.  Speaking of cooperation, we're going to look at how to be a good teammate in Rebellion in the Rim.

2 Rebellion 2 Rim: Basic Fleet Building and Starting Your Campaign

Let's start the RitR discussion by discussing how to build your own fleets for the game. This is one of those "involved" articles I tend to end up writing, so get comfy.

I think these guys are massing near Sullust...

Rebellion in the Rim: Promoting Cross-Blog Synergy!

Time makes liars of us all.

It's going to be Rey and Kylo pics for most of these articles, so enjoy the glimpse into THE FUTURE!

I enjoy blogging, but right now it's been a dearth of articles and things to write about.  As of NOW, all my articles are up to date (this I'm sure will change when Clone Wars drops and we all suddenly re-evaluate things like Overload Pulse or Konstantine).  So I'm looking for something to do in-between now and "Q4" when those appear.

Pretend outward appearances and jokes written online to the contrary, we DO actually like the guys over at Steel Strategy and we all talk fairly often (how many podcasts have I appeared on now? One more and I get a free donut I think), so Biggs and I were talking and we're going to actually work on this whole thing together.  There's a good, hefty chunk of things to cover with respect to Rebellion in the Rim (henceforth, RitR, Ritter, or John Ritter as the mood and dumb jokes strike me) and I do NOT want to have to write up the entire campaign book and offer advice on everything.  We're splitting up the work and looking over each other's shoulders/adding material as wanted/desired, allowing us to divide and conquer.  We're writing these introductory articles separately, but we're looking to follow the below rough outline.

Introductions (individually)
1) Fleet-building and everything involved in that aspect - "Me and my own"
2) Teamwork and Team-building - "Us and ours"
3) The campaign turn and everything involved, stepping through the whole thing
3.5) Setting up the board for fun and a good time.  Where the good planets are and how to find them
4) Battles and Fights - "That guy? How dare they exist where I wanna be!"
5) Green objectives - Who wants to play these and a basic summary of how they play
6) Pivotals - Them, Us, and a galaxy to fight over
Conclusions and what we learned from this experience

There will be some basic guidance here, but as I said in my previous article, I don't want to lead you towards a specific build/definite way of playing.  This is a much more fun sandbox-y place, and it's way more interesting seeing what YOU can do with the restrictions.  After it's all over, I may end up putting some notes in the individual ship/squadron articles about how specific things are better in RitR than they are in the regular game, but as THIS is a passion project and we're more usually focused on the 400 point game, I'll make that call when I get to it.

Why RitR over Corellian Conflict? Because RitR is more fun, and because the campaign snowballs less.  The campaign in RitR seems more developed and more story/theme based.  That's largely the green missions and the acts, but we'll get there.  If you ever wanted to tell a story through your Armada games or make some friends by teaming up to fight the other guys, RitR campaigns are the way to do it.  First up: fleet-building.

Gaming Online: Vassal and TTS!

So, it's been a great month for most of us, huh? This social distancing thing has been FANTASTIC, as I certainly love being unable to see my friends, go outside often, and especially unable to play spaceships in person.  Luckily, the Armada community has ways around this.  Welcome... to the internet!

Look, I need games alright? Internet or nothing, this extrovert needs opponents and human contact

Know Your Enemy/Commander's Corner: Kyrsta Agate

Release day means that with everything caught up, it's time for the Wave 8 articles.  I'll start mine off with Kyrsta Agate, the newest commander and the first not featured in a movie somewhere!  Scourge of Ravager, destroyer of the Imperial Navy after Endor, hit the jump for the details!

It's the eye of the space tiger....

Painting Your Ships

I got into miniatures gaming roughly 10 years ago with Warmachine, and Eric got in well before that, playing Warhammer and the 40Ks and BFG and all that stuff.  One thing I've always enjoyed is being able to paint my own models, just rocking out with all the different ways I can customize something and make it "mine."  Now, you don't NEED to do this for Armada, but it's a fun thing I do that I've often gotten complimented on for my models and all.  Hit the jump for a step through this whole process!

The first of many pictures in my bathroom, because it has the best lighting.  Enjoy!

Before I get going on his, there’s a fair amount of pictures, and even more digressions than usual for a “John” article.  The digressions are worth it, I feel, as they actually RELATE to the topics I’m covering, but still, long article ahead, kids.

Know Your Enemy/Commander's Corner: Admiral Raddus!

Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads, it's time for the ACTUAL Admiral Raddus post!

Look, I'd love to say this isn't just going to be more entrance music, but well.....

john updates 1/5

I did NOT do all the updates I said I was going to.  I got distracted over the week between Christmas and New Years watching TV and using the Instant Pot and hanging with the fiancee and her dog.

Did you really include this picture to just get Internet likes? SHAMELESSLY

Anyways! Moving into 2018 articles!

I updated the "Getting Good 2" article. Mainly cleaning up some wording, a link or two.

Strategic Play was updated, links, spelling Tom Morello's name correctly (Mor-alllllll-oh), and a few minor edits

And the Han and Hera article was updated as well, mainly because I think I link to it in there? And also because I got to reference my GenCon placement, and I'm enough of a self-promoting doofus to want to re-up that one.

Prohibitively Expensive? Han, Hera, Costs, and Usage

So I will fully admit the reason I wrote that Toryn Farr post was to get my math in order for THIS post.  This is going to get into more thinkpiece territory, with a similar thought progression as my article wondering if Yavaris needed a nerf or not.  But this article basically spun out from the question, "Why do Han and Hera cost so dang much?"

Don't worry guys, Hera was on Endor! She survives season 4! Everyone else.....

Strategic Play!

Unfortunately for everyone trying to gain ALL the insights into my playstyle, this article isn't about playing better with everything, so much as learning how to use Strategic squadrons for your benefit and everything they CAN do for you.

I have that exact same outfit...

Learning from Losing 2: How to Git Gud, Scrub

Now, the key to a successful post is to ensure that your headline GRABS your readers and makes them want to read it.  This post originally came about as a result of me noticing something with a few of our local players, and I felt this was worth developing into, if not an article, well, a thinkpiece at the very least.

Don't look like trash when they're looking like class

Pass tokens: a how-to for those who wish to not-do

With 1.5 now out in the wild for a while and me finally caught up on both Clone Wars Separatist articles and revisions to literally dozens of other articles where 1.5 changes made a difference, it's time for an article about an altogether new 1.5 mechanic: pass tokens.

Only the finest old memes in MS Paint for our lovely readers.

Eric 1.5 updates finally finished

 Of course, I'm sure there's something somewhere I missed, but I guess we'll see.

• SSD
• Old pass token reference removed.
• Gunnery Team discussion updated due to 1.5 Gunnery Team.
• It's still the default weapon team but there's some alternatives if you're feeling wacky.
• Updated the title discussion a bit - using Ravager with only con fire tokens is just fine, and I do it, especially late game when repairing becomes important.
• Editing, hyperlinks, the usual.
• Admiral Piett
• Basically left as-is with minor editing.
• He's still not good, sorry.
• Commander Palpatine
• Basic editing.
• He's also still not very great. Too bad he didn't get a minor points cut.
• Romodi
• Basic editing.
• Onager
• Mentioned the issues with evade tokens (up to 3 dropped dice at extreme range nowadays).
• Removed the Banned Trinity mentions.
• Removed H9 Turbolasers and Quad Turbolaser Cannons as they're Modifications and you want that superweapon more than you want these turbolaser upgrades.
  
• Defense tokens
• Updated evade with the new 1.5 changes.
• Otherwise general-purpose upkeep and some more examples here and there.

And that's it. For now. I hope.

Give me a few days to recover and I hope to get a pass tokens article out there to help guide folks through the new normal with 1.5.

The Spend Defense Tokens Step and the Fine Art of Not Dying

This is something of a companion article to the attack sequence article I've linked to countless times already, but its focus is flipped: we're looking specifically at things that keep your ships and squadrons alive when you're attacked. For the sake of brevity I passed over the minutiae of the Spend Defense Tokens step in that article, but we're going in deep this time around.

You gotta keep your angry red death balls all nice and cozy-like, you know?

Imperial ship review: Onager-class Star Destroyer

It's time for a new ship review, hot off the presses it's the Onager-Class Star Destroyer!

They turned our beautiful triangle into a capital T.

Imperial commander review: General Romodi

Fresh off the presses of wave 8, it's General Mitt Romney Romodi.

Imperial commander review: Emperor Palpatine

In today's civics lesson, we're going to cover The Senate.

Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen...

Imperial commander review: Admiral Piett

Let's talk about Admiral Piett. Commander Palpatine will come in due time, but it may be a while longer as I put him through his paces.

Piett finally earned that promotion after his boss got asphyxiated over Facetime.

Imperial ship review: Super Star Destroyer/Star Dreadnought

The age of the Big Chungus is upon us, so let's talk about it with an appropriately super-sized article. Get comfy.

Was real sweet they were able to get Dante in this bad boy.

Eric 1.5 updates New Years Eve and New Years Day

Getting close to done, finally! Edition updates take forever to get through everything and I guarantee you I missed something somewhere. We're up to wave 7 now (the Chimaera ISD variants were already updated earlier in the ISD mega-article).

• Mandalorian Gauntlet Fighter.
• Removed references to old Intel.
• It's still absolutely terrible.
• For real, FFG should be ashamed of how bad this squadron is.
  
• Grand Admiral Thrawn
• Tarkin comparison spruced up a bit (thanks, cheaper Tarkin!).
• Removed references to two-ship now that Pryce is dead.
  
• I have nothing nice to say about that fleet build at all and I'm glad it's dead. Every time I delete references to Pryce or two-ship it makes me a little happy.
  
• Otherwise shortened and streamlined the article.
• Wave 7 Rebellion in the Rim objectives
• Red
• Ion Storm
• Interdictors with Grav Shift Reroute work well here, just like they do with all objectives that let you place all obstacles.
• Marked for Destruction
• Again, Interdictor with Grav Shift Reroute helps a lot.
• That doesn't mean this objective is good.
• Surprise Attack
• Removed references to Bail and Pryce.
• Removed reference to Avenger.
  
• Blue
• Minor editing and upkeep.
• Yellow
• Overall minor editing and upkeep. Added Interdictor discussion to Rift Ambush per a reader mention about Grav Shift Reroute and I agree it's got some legs.
  

Yellow (defense) objectives, Rebellion in the Rim

It's the final RitR objectives article!

Blue (navigation) objectives, Rebellion in the Rim

Here's our second installment of Rebellion in the Rim objectives, the blue/navigation objectives. These are typically fairly wordy objectives, and in RitR if anything they've gotten even moreso, so buckle up and break out your teeny-tiny text glasses.

Maz didn't need reading goggles until Rebellion in the Rim came out.

Red (assault) objectives, Rebellion in the Rim

It's time to start adding articles on the new RitR objectives, beginning with the red/assault objectives. This will be the first of three, so check them out as I add them to the fleet building/objectives page.