Its probably not secret I am a big fan of salvo its a really cool and fun mechanic, its also just incredibly good. I had a very brief discussion with someone about salvo, in that conversation they voiced the concern that salvo discourages attacking and that it made it hard to get much more then a 6-5 tournament point spread in a game where salvo is heavy on both sides. I think this comes from a more traditional way of thinking about defense tokens and the game in general 1.5 and greater presence of salvo have really shaken things up. So today we are going to look at salvo and how you can use it effectively and how to play against it.
Why is salvo so good, well how do you win an armada game? You might say killing other ships and you would be right, but it also includes not losing your ships. Salvo really turns the game on its head, where before you where rolling 8 damage and locking up the brace, can you really afford to do that with salvo in the mix? You really want the damage to stick, but if you take the salvo that's an extra 2 or 3 damage you have to deal with, and then you need to factor in any incoming shots after that.
Salvo can at times just by being on a ship a defense token that protects that ships other defense tokens. Its a little weird, but getting damage to stick to a ship is important, but not being destroyed as a ship is also very important to winning a game of armada. This effect I feel leads to you wanting to lock down the salvo tokens as often as possible, unless locking up another token would ensure a kill, but even then you need to factor in if a salvo attack could kill you and if it could who is winning the trade?
In most of my recent games of Armada salvo has been a fairly large part of the game. Most lists I have come across have at least one source of salvo. I would also say because of salvo my games have been a little tighter then normal because I think about how many times before salvo I would get a ship out of combat with only a few hull points left, now with salvo that would be a dead ship.
Because of these factors salvo is amazing not only does it deal extra damage and that is always good it becomes a token that needs to be locked down otherwise ship that could survive will die meaning ECMs is not nearly as important on a ship with a salvo token because the salvo token acts as protection for the brace token. An example would be a ship attacks an ISD, and locks up the ISDs brace to deal a good chunk of damage and get out of the front arc, however that ISD has a salvo so it rolls its 3 salvo dice and the ship that attacked the ISD “escapes” into the side arc and now takes a shot from the side arc with 4 dice when you factor in the salvo the ISD still threw 7 total dice just one less then it normally would have from the front, while putting more pressure on defense tokens because it came from two separate shots. I used this to great effect in an online game with an ISD my opponent really did not want to attack it, because of the damage they would take back in addition to the crazy pressure it put on that ships defense tokens.
Imperial II (120) • Emperor Palpatine (3) • Local Fire Control (4) • Reactive Gunnery (4) • SW-7 Ion Batteries (5) • Linked Turbolaser Towers (7) = 143 Points
Salvo deals, extra damage, can “protect” other defense tokens, and can prevent a weakened ship from attacking you simply because it might die that is pretty amazing for a defense token. If you have not been using it in your fleet builds you really should start using it. However because its so good how do we stop it, how do we play around with it?
accuracy tech H9, QTC, Home one title, etc. accuracies are a wonderful tool for dealing with salvo, sure ECM does exist, but I think ECM might be on its way out the door due to an increased prevalence of salvo. Accuracy tech will always be good even when attacking a ship without salvo because that just means you are getting more damage to stick. Its not a perfect solution as Reactive Gunnery is a good play around as a ship with more then one readied defense token will likely still get a salvo off on you, but its because of salvo accuracies not only can help you kill ships, but can help your ships defensively as well.
Obstruction I really think that because of salvo EWS is in a good spot to become a staple. EWS is great against squadron and in salvos case it is cutting the attack pool ether in half or in third, this holds true for many small attack pools, and even with larger attack pools its still less firepower. Now sure it only obstructs one arc, so if you are double arcing a ship with a salvo token its not as helpful, but you can always use it to protect a more vulnerable arc. Montferrat is an officer I could see dusting off with salvo back in the mix, and General Cracken has been doing well I think in large part because how nice he is against salvo. General Romodi as well obstructing your shot to empower it, but also reduce incoming salvo damage is wonderful.
Damage reduction, I mean this goes without saying, but salvo only increases the value of cards Expert Shield Techs, to help reduce the damage just by that extra little bit. I was a little sad Major Derlin did not get a cost reduction, but with salvo he might be justifiable.
Salvo has been a very interesting addition to the game, and I think that players are still learning how impactful it can be including me. I have started to use the accuracies I do get to lock up salvo and use coordinated fire to put pressure on the other defense tokens the ship has, and I think this is the correct approach when playing against salvo. Ether way salvo is here to stay and you need to ask yourself “how am I going to deal with salvo?” if you want to get the big wins.
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