Article 8: Mass and Squad Uniformity

I've been experimenting with TIE Interceptor heavy Imperial lists for several months now.  The original list was 4 Saber Squadron Aces and Gideon Hask and Crack Shot on everyone.  It was five I4 ships that almost always had 3 dice attacks.  The squad is extremely fast and hits very, very hard.  I've had a ton of fun with it and it's won a lot of games.  

It has some very good matchups against defensive lists where the huge raw damage output can overcome the defense of the opposition and the Sabers don't have to worry about big offense coming back at them.  It also has historically been strong against low Initiative lists where each of the Sabers can outmaneuver and initiative kill most of the opponent's ships.  There are some notable bad matchups, though.  High initiative, high offense ships hit at the Saber's main weakness (low defense) and require some careful play and an absence of too much bad luck to overcome.  

Despite the cool reception by most of the community, I was plenty happy with my experiences with the Saber Squadron Ace.  As a consequence, I looked for ways to mitigate their weaknesses.  I tried downgrading the 5th ship to an Academy Pilot and promoting one Saber to Soontir Fel.  I tried Fel with a couple Sabers plus Vermeil with crew (Vader to hit hard or Sloane to punish kills against the Sabers).  I tried Vader with 3 Sabers.  All of these variations felt worse during the games than the original squad, despite me being convinced that on paper they were each a considerable improvement in their own way.

The Sabers felt like they weren't pulling their weight.  They were what everybody else thought they were:  overpriced and fragile.  In almost every case, it seemed the squads could be improved by remaking them into 3 ship ace lists.

Why, then, did these squads fail where the 5 ship squad worked?  Am I a bad ace player?  Am I not skilled enough with Reapers?  I'm definitely not confident saying the answer to those questions is no, but I think there's something more going on.

To help think about this, there are two squad building concepts that in want to discuss:  Mass and Uniformity.

Mass is the amount of stuff you have.  I'm not going to suggest a formula or anything for a numerical rating, but more mass means more shots, more blocking, more different things that your squad can do to help you win the game.  The effect of mass as it increases is not linear.  One basic ship (not a high initiative ace or a multiple firing arc ship that can get shots as it retreats) isn't worth very much.  It's target, if it hasn't been arc dodged, will have a token for defense, and it's possible this basic ship will have have lost its token defending.  Any damage that gets done is likely through luck.  Two basic ships is far more than twice as good as one ship.  The second ship can overlap firing arcs with the first, forcing the target to to spend tokens defensively, or it can block, or spread out arcs.  Even with the enhanced capability of two ships, you have one full attack, and one more limited attack/block that isn't likely to do damage.  With 3 ships, you have two full attacks, and one ship blocking/stripping tokens, or you are covering a lot of areas so that an opposing ship can't arc dodge, or whatever combination of these things is good for the situation these three ships face.  Each additional ship is also a ship that can be lost while still maintaining the capability of the ships below it.  Three ships that get one initiative killed are down a third of third of their number, but more than a third of their capability.  From experience, the point where mass becomes really strong is at 4 solid ships or 5 lighter ships.  Basically, if your squad can take a decent round of fire from an opposing squad and still have 4 guns looking toward the opponent's squad, you're in good shape.  Four arcs lets you have a a pair of shots in two different places, or a series of continuously overlapping arcs. That's a kind of formation that very few ships in the game can be confident confronting.  

Uniformity is how similar the elements of your squad are.  A highly uniform squad has a lot of pieces that all fit the same role.  They move similarly,  they are good and bad in similar situations, etc.  A less uniform squad usually tries to supplement weaknesses of one ship with the strengths of another.  There are definite reasons to pursue a uniform or diverse squad.  Diverse squads have far fewer very bad matchups, because one element may be strong against the opposing squad when another element is weak.  Similarly, an opposing element that is especially threatening to your end game ace may be susceptible to that ace's supporting ships.  However, their diversity means an opponent can remove certain capabilities by destroying certain ships.  If a squad is reliant on responsive repositioning to defeat the opposing squad, they have a plausible road to victory by destroying the ace in an ace/miniswarm type build.  A uniform squad, however, maintains its capabilities as long as a critical number of ships are alive.  There's no one ship that the squad is leaning on for victory.  However, the uniform squad has only the strengths and weaknesses of the single type of ship that makes it up.  If that ship is strongly countered by the ships in an opposing squad, the game can become very difficult to win.  

To look at how these concepts relate to the squads I discussed, let's compare the original squad to the last of my alternate squads listed above (Vader and 3 Sabers).  It's very similar to the original and feels like it should be substantially better on paper.  Instead of four I4 three dice attacks and sometimes a 5th I4 3 dice dice attack, you get an I6 ship that's tough and hits hard.  That TIE Fighter seems like not much to give up to improve a Saber to Vader with all his initiative, force points, re-rolls and crits.  The effect on the squad is more than it seems, however.  It introduces a different level of caution into how the squad plays, which in turn serves to negate the original squad's strength, without sufficiently shoring up the weaknesses.  To make this comparison, I'll walk you through how each squad would approach the opposing squad.

1.)  Vader + 3 Sabers:  The idea here is to use the high offense of the Sabers to draw heat away from Vader, preserving him for the end game.  The speed would let the Sabers threaten and get the jump on opposing squads in ways that Marc de Bruyn's Vader + 3 Phantom list (Top 4 in the Toronto System Open) couldn't, and it would do it at higher initiative with points for a bid and a stronger Vader.  In practice, this can work, but not really better than with the Phantoms, and usually worse.  Those Phantoms can engage alone and expect to sustain some damage, whereas the 3 Sabers can't expect to do that without some luck.  With Vader's good, not great maneuverability, he has to play a little conservative in case the opponent decides to turn in on him instead of the Sabers.  The practical consequence is that if the engagement doesn't go exactly right, the Sabers engage first.  It doesn't take a lot of insight to understand that 3x single modded 3 dice attacks is not often forcing the really hard decisions on an opposing squad.  Those 3 attacks are worth even less in the likelihood that one gets initiative killed, token stripped, arc dodged, or some combination thereof.  Vader coming in on a flank can make up some damage, but often not fast enough.  You get behind in the damage race early.

2.)  4 Sabers + Hask:  this squad often approaches in a loose blob, using the Interceptors' inherent mobility to overlap a lot of arcs onto an area where an opposing ship is likely to be.  It usually puts out 5 3 dice attacks, so if one is stripped of Focus, or destroyed, there are still 4 incoming, which most ships would really rather avoid.  5 arcs become extremely difficult to dodge as well, as they can be dispersed enough that they can cover a large area, but still have multiple arcs on multiple places.  The 5 highly maneuverable bodies make arc dodging difficult just due to blocking, as well, as they can occupy any space an opposing ship might use to attack the group.  Finally, because they are all roughly the same capability, and none of them act as an end game closer, they can all act aggressively and in unison.  This allows for far more flexibility in how they attack.  They are able to use their firepower and maneuverability to force opposing ships into retreat or bad exchanges, as they are perfectly willing to risk the loss of a ship since so many more squadmates are nearby to punish offensive maneuvers and actions.  This squad takes a ship with notable weaknesses and leans hard on its strengths while accepting the weaknesses as acceptable risks.


Going back to Mass and Uniformity, the Vader version of the Saber squad lacks both, which would be fine if the Saber Squadron Ace didn't need to rely on the offensive threat of its allies (Mass) for survival.  Being down one ship in the squad, and more significantly, being down two ships locally because of Vader wanting to flank means that it no longer has the necessary mass to force opposing ships to act defensively or gamble on losing a more expensive ship to the mass of TIE Interceptors.  It's just a 41 point ship that blows up like a TIE Fighter.  3 ships drops to two quite quickly, and then it's only 2 ships are retaliating instead of 4.  Likewise, the squad leans heavily on the Saber Squadron Ace's excellent speed and maneuverability to shift toward or away from opposing ships.  As Vader is much more limited in this ability, the Sabers are compelled to stay in a dogfight and support him, which they're not able to do reliably.  They rely on Uniformity in their movement to allow the necessary Mass of ships to support each other effectively.  


This has all been about a very niche squad that is likely interesting only to me, but the principle is something to consider in a wide number of squads.  Any kind of squad with an ace and a jousting element can look at that jousting element and determine if it has the mass to get the job done of circumstances prevent the ace from lending its weight to the fight on the first engagement.  For example, Vader with a Howl/Iden miniswarm works because that miniswarm has a lot of mass with 4 ships and the Howl/Iden combo to get the most out of those 4 ships.  Likewise, thinking about Mass may inform your decision making on which opposing elements to target first.  If there is a desirable target that will take multiple turns to destroy, it may be wise to focus on a lesser target that can be removed quickly, because aside from the benefit of getting that ship out of the game, removing one ship reduces the capability of other ships in the squad.  Uniformity can also help you think about how to use or combat certain squads.  If you're facing a lot of identical ships, such as YYYYY, you know you can't knock out that's squad's main strength by just killing one ship.  A conservative approach to preserve your own squad is necessary while doing low risk damage where you can, only selling out for offense when you can get the squad down to 3 ships.  

Thanks for reading.