So I learned something interesting while writing this article, there are two spellings for the word “Flak” one is “Flack” it has several meanings but one it to publicize or promote the other is “Flak” which means antiaircraft guns and it originates from the German word “fliegerabwehrkanone” and that means aviator defense canon. Hope you found that interesting because I sure did, anyway lets get to talking about Armada.
So as per the title I am going to talk about what I think is one of the most underrated asset a ship has its flak dice. Let me tell you your flack dice can really swing squadron games in your favor, I have wiped 100+ points of squadrons off the board with 50 points or less invested in squadrons with some flack support, and in-fact I have done the same thing with no squadron support as well. I see a lot of people struggle against squadron lists, and it really boils down to correct tactics against squadrons, and using flack effectively I think is one of the more difficult things to do in the game, I'm not perfect at it ether, but I will do my best to explain the basics, of what I have learned over my time with the game, and that has been since Wave 0. Timing, its key to almost everything we do in Armada, however I find it even more true when playing against squadrons. You have Six rounds to get as many points as you can remember its not a race, you don't have to table your opponent turn 3 or 4 you just need to come away with an acceptable margin after 6 rounds. The I gotta table my opponent as quickly as possible mentality or the “Go for the Carriers” mentality will generally lead you to be too aggressive and place your ship in a vulnerable position because what will be waiting for you around the carrier, the squadrons,and the carrier with its squadron support can take you out faster than you can take out the carrier in also every circumstance, remember if fighters can penetrate point defense systems they are often more deadly than capital ships. So what should we be doing against squadrons well that depends on the timing of the engagement. Most of the time squadron engagement happens turn 2 sometimes turn 3, as the player coming in with just a token screen maybe less, we have to accept that our ships will take some damage from bombers, its really unavoidable, however it may seam counter intuitive, but it is best to hold your screen back out of engagement range and let the bombers come to you, why, because by letting the bombers come to you they come into your flack range, now you can support your screen with flack and not let the bombers get supported by there ships flack, and if you ship is unactivated all the better.
Use every ship, I see a lot of people that keep flotillas safe to support the fleet with fleet commands, however for me Armada is a game about squeezing all the value out of every ship you can, even the Gr-75 that has no ship to ship guns has flack dice use it you will be very supersized how much that one black dice will contribute to the squadron game, here is just an example. Lets say hypothetically a GR-75 had 8 squadrons in flack range, statistically we would do 1 damage to 6 of the squadrons. Now if we have two GR-75's doing that plus the help of a light squadron screen you can really thin out a squadron-ball.
Avoid overlapping squadrons, this is far more important than you might think, yeah overlapping squadrons is not fun, but I think a lot of people don't realize how big an impact that can have on not only using flack, but the squadron game in general. First if you overlap squadrons your opponent can “break” engagement meaning they might be able to attack with bombers they would not have normally been able to. Second, they could “hide” squadrons in an arch this means they put the squadrons in an arch where you have to sacrifice an amazing shot on a ship to flack squadrons, this protects one of your opponates assets. Third, not quite as impact full, but you wont be able to flack as many squadrons from one arch, its simarler to the “hiding” of squadrons, but I think it goes without saying that the more squadrons you can flak the greater the value you will get from that one flak attack.
Positioning, This is key to all aspects of Armada, but again even more so when it comes to maximizing flak. Most ships have a “ship Killer” arch, an arch with a lot of battery dice, and then other archs with fewer battery dice, it a really simple concept, but one that is often over looked, we want to use our ship killer archs to attack ship's and our other archs that have fewer battery dice to flak squadrons, for example a Raider would want to attack a ship out it front arch and flack squadrons out its sides or rear, the same apples to the ISD, T0e Home One wants to flack out the front and attack ships from the sides with the Liberty its the opposite, if you are able to take gunnery teams this elevates some of the pain if you have squadrons in your ship killer arch, but if that is the only reason you are taking gunnery teams I would strongly reconsider taking it, when positioning ships you want to do your best to keep ships in your “Ship Killer” arch and squadrons in your other archs.
Kill Zones, This one almost goes hand in hand with positioning, so we will keep it short, but just as you would create kill zones for ships by having overlapping firing archs, its important to do the same with squadrons overlap your flack archs. I will share an example, a real one that I have seen used lets say I have 4 CR-90's and one GR-75 with Toryn Farr, all the CR-90's have overlapping archs on a squadron ball in front of them, with Toryn Farr your doing 1 point of damage almost every time, that means each squadron that is in all 4 of these corvettes archs will basically take 4 damage and that is just in one turn it is just insane how fast flak damage can add up when you create these kill zones and if you are able to keep squadrons in these kill zones over multiple turns.
Tie down squadrons, this is easy said than done, but if you can tie down a squadornball for even just one turn its so much easier to create the overlapping flak kill zones we just talked about, and/or it could keep the squadrons in that kill zone for one more turn, and in my experience with two rounds of a squadronball being in a kill zone with a little support from a fighter screen chipping in a little damage to help the flak if the squadron ball is not complete whipped out, you have put a substantial dent into it.
In summary Time your engagement correctly, Use every ship you have , Avoid overlapping squadrons, Position your ships to flack and attack, create kill zones, and tie down squadrons. Like I said I know this is all easier said than done, but I hope that it has at least helped you understand maybe a bit better how to use flak to help you win the squadron game, even against heavy squadron lists. I could probably write an article on each paragraph in this article, which I may do if people are interested in that, but for now I hope this has given you a few things to think about, and that it will help you become a better Armada player, thanks for reading and have a wonderful week!
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