Currently, in the game, I would say all lists have some sort of point fortress. A point fortress is something that protects your points by making it hard for your opponent to score them (usually because they’re hard to kill.) This is one of the reasons there are so many large ships flying around: most of them provide this type of fortress effect. Let me show you some popular examples of point fortresses.
Ackbar Defiance
MC80 Assault Cruiser (114) • Engine Techs (8) • Electronic Countermeasures (7) • Early Warning System (7) • Leading Shots (4) • Quad Battery Turrets (5) • Defiance (5) = 150 Points
This is one of my favorite Rebel loadouts; you get both ECM and EWS. It’s very often seen with Ackbar, but every now and then someone else is at the helm. You could definitely add Lando. I’ve been toying around with Mon Cal Exodus fleet on this and an MC-30; it's still on the drawing board, but with just an engineering token you are getting 4 engineering, which just as good as a command, making for a very durable ship.
Seventh fleet ISD
Imperial II (120) • Captain Brunson (5) • Gunnery Team (7) • Early Warning System (7) • Leading Shots (4) • Quad Battery Turrets (5) • Seventh Fleet Star Destroyer (5) = 153 Points
This was designed by a member of Team Canada and we’re going to look at his list in its entirety, but I want to look at just this ship for now. This ship is fun. It’s very hard to kill, and has a trick up its sleeve: it can drop to speed zero and wait for you to come to it. With Brunson, EWS and Seventh fleet it can take long-range shots without much problem while the opponents ships close, and you get use out of QBTs while enemies fly to their doom. It’s fun, it’s crazy, it’s a point fortress. Now let’s look at the full list.
Imperial II (120) • Grand Admiral Thrawn (32) • Captain Brunson (5) • Gunnery Team (7) • Early Warning System (7) • Leading Shots (4) • Quad Battery Turrets (5) • Seventh Fleet Star Destroyer (5) = 185 Points
Gladiator I (56) • Hondo Ohnaka (2) • Projection Experts (6) • Seventh Fleet Star Destroyer (5) = 69 Points
Squadrons: • Bossk (23) • Maarek Stele (21) • Colonel Jendon (20) • Dengar (20) • Morna Kee (27) • Mauler Mithel (15) = 126 Points
Total Points: 380
So he’s got Projection Experts on his Gladiator for even more survivability on the ISD, and then he’s got 126 points worth of squadrons, which are his second point fortress.
So it’s kind of weird to think of squadrons as point fortress, but let’s look at it from one perspective: a squadronless list. Most squadronless lists lack the ability to kill squadrons. This list has 126 points hiding in squadron value, so as a no squads list you come crashing in, killing the ISD. The GSD just nopes out of there and you’ve taken 185 points off the table that would give you, if you lost nothing and no objective tokens to swing it one way, an 8-3. However, let’s be honest with ourselves: between the fighters and the ISD you have probably lost at least one ship. We’ll be generous and say it was only a 50 point ship; that’s pretty cheap for a ship, but still bumps your MOV down to 135 and that’s a 7-4. Still a win, but if you lose more than 126 points it’s a 6-5 for you, and that’s only 2 small ships, maybe 3. With Gunnery Team and the fighters, scoring 126 points for this list against a squadless build isn’t a huge issue.
It’s hard to win big in this case for most squadronless lists against squadron fleets, because you give your opponent the ability to fortress points behind the condition of you completely tabling them. If they have a ship that sees things are going to get dicey and nopes right out, then you aren’t getting points from the ship or the squadron ball.
So when taking a squadronless fleet you need to realize that when you come up against a squadron heavy list, there’s pretty much no way you’re going to get the points that are wrapped up in squadrons unless you table your opponent or have a lot of points invested in ship AA, and even then it’s a bit sketchy.
Because squadrons give lists a second point fortress of sorts, it can be difficult for squadronless to win big against heavy squadron lists, and the best way to get points and kill squadrons while denying the ability of your opponent to make a point fortress out of their squadrons is to take your own.
This is why squadrons are seen so often and in such numbers; they’re either a big point fortress for you or a means to deny your opponent the ability to use their squadrons as a point fortress, as the squadrons pick each other off. Having both a tanky large ship and the large investment in squadrons makes it difficult to win big against these lists, which is why 2-ship is on the rise. It’s one big beefy ship and a lot of squadrons: two point fortresses in one list.
Let’s look at the winning worlds list.
Quasar Fire I (54) • Skilled First Officer (1) • Flight Controllers (6) • Boosted Comms (4) • Squall (3) = 68 Points
Arquitens Command Cruiser (59) • Captain Brunson (5) • Engine Techs (8) • Centicore (3) = 75 Points
Raider I (44) • Admiral Sloane (24) • Hondo Ohnaka (2) = 70 Points
Gozanti Cruisers (23) • Comms Net (2) = 25 Points
Gozanti Cruisers (23) • Comms Net (2) = 25 Points
Squadrons: • Colonel Jendon (20) • Maarek Stele (21) • Mauler Mithel (15) • Howlrunner (16) • Ciena Ree (17) • Valen Rudor (13) • Saber Squadron (12) • Dengar (20) = 134 Points
This list has no tanky large ship, but as a trade-off the list has a point fortress in the squadrons and does not give up large amounts of points easily. Based off of how I have seen the list flown, you won’t be able to table it because the Raider runs away, and the flotillas do the same and just relay though Centicore. So that leaves the Arquitens and the Quasar as the only ships that stay near the fight, and if you kill both of them you get 143 points. Again, if you aren’t playing the squadron game you’ll struggle to win big, as the squadron ball becomes a point fortress.
I find running squadless a high risk, high reward type of strategy. In most games it’s either table your opponent or lose the game. I’m not saying it’s impossible to win big, it’s definitely not. For example, let’s look at the highest placing all ship list from worlds:
MC80 Star Cruiser (96) • Intel Officer (7) • Caitken and Shollan (6) • Engine Techs (8) • Heavy Ion Emplacements (9) • Quad Battery Turrets (5) = 131 Points
CR90 Corvette A (44) • Admiral Raddus (26) • Engine Techs (8) • Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (7) • Jaina's Light (2) = 87 Points
CR90 Corvette A (44) • Engine Techs (8) • Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (7) = 59 Points
CR90 Corvette A (44) • Engine Techs (8) • Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (7) = 59 Points
GR-75 Medium Transports (18) • Slicer Tools (7) • Quantum Storm (1) = 26 Points
GR-75 Medium Transports (18) • Hondo Ohnaka (2) • Slicer Tools (7) = 27 Points
Squadrons: = 0 Points
Total Points: 389
This is Truthiness's list. He did a write-up about his experience with it at worlds on his blog, and you can read that here. He made it into 6th place at the end of the day, and at worlds that’s quite the finish. So he doesn’t have squadrons, but he’s not ignoring the squadron game. He has two flotillas with Slicer Tools to mess with the command dials, and he did so very well with each squadron list he came up against, from what I understand after reading the write-up. The only squadron lists he lost to were fleets with Thrawn at the helm, slicer-proofing ships for at least 3 turns. However, he was aware that if he could not table the squadron lists then it was not going to do great:
“I have never, nor do I think I will ever, miss having squadrons in this particular list. Yes, it puts me on the clock. I generally need a tabling against a max squadron build or I'm pretty well screwed. But you know what? I can do that reliably, even against someone with a lifeboat in the corner. Even when I can't rely on slicers, I've proven that I can still effectively pressure a squadron heavy build. The key is tempo.”
I think that any type of build is viable currently in the game from all ship to squadron heavy. Even the light and medium fighter coverage groups can be when used properly, though I look forward to the new campaign box, as it has been hinted that smaller squadron wings will be more viable after its release. As discussed, I think one of the main reasons we see heavy squads is the ability to hide points in a squadron fortress, and to counter that we take squadrons to kill squadrons; while I am not personally a fan of squadronless lists, as I feel Armada at its core is a combined arms game (and that’s the whole reason I got into the game,) I think squadronless lists are still viable when flown well, without completely ignoring the squadron game. Have a great week everyone!
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