Armada: Ackbar's revenge

I actually have this as a shirt.

As we get closer to the SoCal Regionals here, I'm start to evaluate an oldie but goldie:  My MC80 Ackbar list.  I think in the current meta, the Home One is a very powerful additions that might be overlooked.  In fact, this iteration of my famous giant fishstick works really well for a number of reasons.

First, the list:

IT'S NOT A TRAP!
Author: HERO

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 388/400
Commander: Admiral Ackbar
Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Solar Corona
Activations: 4
Deployments: 7

[ flagship ] MC80 Command Cruiser (106 points)
-  Admiral Ackbar ( 38 points)
-  Home One ( 7 points)
-  Intel Officer ( 7 points)
-  Engine Techs ( 8 points)
-  Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
-  XI7 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
-  Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 183 total ship cost

Assault Frigate Mark II B (72 points)
-  Skilled First Officer ( 1 points)
-  Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
-  Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
-  XI7 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
= 93 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
-  Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 20 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
-  Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 20 total ship cost

1 Tycho Celchu ( 16 points)
1 Green Squadron ( 12 points)
4 A-Wing Squadrons ( 44 points)

I'll break them down here:

• Home One allows you to spread accuracies throughout your list.  There's only one real target where this goes to, which is the MKII AF, but this is good enough if the MKII is equipped the right way.  Having Ackbar's additional reds, a free accuracy and XI7s guarantees that whatever damage you throw out will be accurate and hit hard.  The MKII is by far the best choice for a second ship here:  It benefits from Home One the most and its a very durable ship that has access to Gunnery Teams.  This allows you to throw more damage on a multiple of targets and you can possibly drop multiple floaters per turn.
• The MC80C itself is also a pretty strong ship with a good amount of shields, solid defenses with ECMs, and 3 blues to throw out in addition to Ackbar's 5 reds.  This makes it on-par with the ISD-II in terms of damage, but with possibly larger swings in the damage compartment at the cost of fewer accuracy chances.  This is fine by me because with Intel Offier, Home One herself will hit extremely hard.  The other choice here was the MC80A, but it's a significantly more expensive ship if you also add Reinforced Blast Doors.  Sure, it gives you more a larger sample with 6 reds and 2 blues, but this also cuts down the chances you'll roll an accuracy against flotillas if you manage to slash multiple targets.  Having an entire volley from the MC80 going to waste because of Scatter is a huge letdown.
• Multiple Comms Net floaters for me are used for various reasons.  The first one is being an extra deployment and ship activation, but the second reason is that they can be used to further increase the accuracy of my two big ships by throwing out Conc Fire tokens repeatedly.  Since their job is to strictly out-activate the opponent and drawing them ever closer to red range, having the token boats just flying around as additional blockers is never a bad thing.  For example, first round queue for CF or a single Squadron on Home One to throw 5 the next round, second round continue to CF or engineering.  Either way, the idea here is that you're working in conjunction with the activation order of your ships and what commands they'll be using.  If you're planning to Nav spam, you probably won't need Nav tokens, and instead will want damage or minor healing.  If you're planning to heal, queue up Engineering on both because 6 engineering is much better than 4.  Of course, Concentrate Fire + the token will give you much stronger results and more flexibility, especially with Leading Shots on the MC80 or Home One's accuracy modifier.
• Lastly, my squadron selection.  I've tried a number of things here for the last couple of months, from A-Wings, to YTs, to a mix of the two, from smaller numbers (4), to larger numbers (8), and this is basically what that evolved to today:  Which is 6 A-Wings, one of which being Tycho.  The reason why Tycho stays is because of his disruption range of 5 and being able to catch any bombers straying away to make plays.  He doesn't even need to attack, all he needs to do is hold up the enemy while my bigger ships does work on the opposing fleet.  The speed-5 As really gives me that first strike advantage, although even with 5 of them being flung at the enemy from the MC80C, I'm still only throwing out 15 dice worth of blues.  It's good, but it's nowhere as good as an alpha from Imperial equivalents backed by Howl.  Either way, the thought process here is that against lower squadron counts I will win easier and my ships are already equipped for anti-ship action.  Against medium squadrons, I might do OK but I will look for a faster anti-ship solution in terms of Conc Fire or repair commands.  If fighting against a heavy bomber presence, I will go for the tie up and try to end their support ships ASAP.  Depending on the amount of bombers there are, I might need heavy repair commands while utilizing my heavier ships in ramming actions against the support floaters.

Anyways, this is my current Ackbar list that I'm fiddling around with and what I'll most likely bring to Regionals this year.  I was thinking about dropping an A-Wing for Intel Officer on the AF, but I don't think it's quite worth it.  I would rather have the additional support, but I am able to fit in both IO on the AF and bring Shara Bey instead of a generic.  My total squadron count will drop down to 5, and I'll lose a deployment because of it though.  What do you guys think?

Armada: The Empire Strikes Back

Chimaera was an ISD-II under the command of Grand Admiral Thrawn.

This is one of the Regionals lists that I've been pondering about over the last few weeks.  No joke, I'm very close to having a change of heart and possibly switching over to Imperials for the next couple of months.  The reason is actually quite simple for me:  There is a lot of people running squadrons in my area, a lot of people are running Rebels, and Imperials seem under-presented and thought of as weaker in most cases.

Having watched Rogue One a few times already and loving the hell out of it, I figure I'd bring back one of the most iconic ships of all time and use it as a mainstay in my list.  Yes, I'm talking about the Imperial Star Destroyer.  Although, I will be using the ISD-II in my list and not the I for reasons I'll mention later.

Without further ado, the list:

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

Author: HERO

Faction: Galactic Empire

Points: 385/400

Commander: Admiral Motti

Activations: 3

Drops: 6

Assault Objective: Most Wanted

Defense Objective: Contested Outpost

Navigation Objective: Minefields

[ flagship ] Imperial II-Class Star Destroyer (120 points)

-  Admiral Motti ( 24 points) 

-  Avenger ( 5 points) 

-  Agent Kallus ( 3 points) 

-  Gunnery Team ( 7 points) 

-  Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points) 

-  XI7 Turbolasers ( 6 points) 

-  Leading Shots ( 4 points) 

= 176 total ship cost

Gladiator I-Class Star Destroyer (56 points)

-  Demolisher ( 10 points) 

-  Skilled First Officer ( 1 points) 

-  Ordnance Experts ( 4 points) 

-  Engine Techs ( 8 points) 

-  Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points) 

= 84 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruiser (23 points)

-  Suppressor ( 4 points) 

-  Comms Net ( 2 points) 

= 29 total ship cost

1 Darth Vader ( 21 points) 

1 Dengar ( 20 points) 

1 "Howlrunner" ( 16 points) 

1 "Mauler" Mithel ( 15 points) 

3 TIE Fighter Squadrons ( 24 points) 

I'm going to break this list down, piece by piece before we bring it back together for the bigger picture.

First, let's examine the ISD-II and why I think this is one of the strongest ships in the current meta:

• For one, the weapon armament that it has stock is very good vs. the flotilla-saturated meta:  Having 4 innate blues gives you a very high chance to roll accuracies and stopping a Scatter from happening.  All you need is 4 damage to kill in most cases, 5 vs. Bright Hope and most of the time, the ISD-II will have no problem one-shotting the floaters.
• Second, the ship has 2 blue anti-squadron dice that it can throw out in combination with Gunnery Teams.  This allows you to either engage either two different ships (possibly wiping out two flotillas), or allowing you to focus on one ship while bringing Imperial justice on all the squadrons in front of you.  There are not many ships in the game that can reliably throw out huge damage on ships and deliver two dice blues worth of AA from a large area.  This simply does not exist in the game and having this ability is a huge boon.
• Third, Imperials have access to Agent Kallus, which is one of the most cost-effective Officer upgrades in the game.  The ability to throw out an extra dice of any color as soon as you're able to engage in AA as long as you're shooting a named pilot is amazing.  Just think about how many big names are in the meta:  Biggs, Ketsu, Jan, Tycho, Dengar, Rhymer, Norra, the list goes on and on.  Throwing out a black and 2 blues is no joke when you're shooting from blue range.  AA gets around the likes of Escort and being able to spray down an entire Biggsball will be huge in the upcoming meta.
• Forth, the ship's upgrade slots gives you some of the best titles and upgrades in the game.  Look at Leading Shots for example:  If the only thing you see with Leading Shots is the ability to allow your ship to re-roll a bunch of ISD-II frontal firepower, you're not seeing the big picture here.  You can also Leading Shots your way with Kallus onto named fighters to re-roll a bunch of whiffs.  Let's say you roll 2 blues and a black on Biggs and whiff with all 3.  You Leading Shots a blue to re-roll 2 dice and you might turn that into raw damage.  The same can be said about fishing out killing blows on squadrons with scatter.  Throw out 3 blues and fish for that accuracy if all you need left is to push 1 damage.
• Fifth, look at Avenger.  If the only thing you can think of when reading this is your ability to push after your Demolisher hits or when Suppressor triggers, then you're sorely mistaken.  Avenger's effect also works on shooting with AA onto squadrons that have exhausted their tokens.  You send in your squadrons, do big damage, force a few Braces and Scatters, and then you spray the lot with Kallus-driven AA.  Now you can't Brace or Scatter on those units and you're just taking straight damage while the ISD-II tears through ships and squadrons at will.
• Sixth, you put all this above into one ship and you have one of the best ships in the game vs. the current meta.  The way I currently have it configured is big, mean, and heavily loaded to take on squadrons and ships via XI7s.  This is the biggest difference that the ISD-II has over the ISD-I, and that's the ability to take Gunnery Teams and Kallus with 4 blues vs. ships and 2 blues vs. squadrons.  In a meta like this one, you want blues and you want flak.  No other ship in the game can do that; which makes the ISD-II very unique and powerful in the meta.

Now that the mainstay ship of the list has been presented, let's add the rest.  The Demolisher shouldn't really need an introduction:  It's still one of the best ships in the game, being able to deal insane amounts of damage to any ship in the game, despite suffering a bit from being scattered to death by flotillas and man-handled by Slicer Tools.  Regardless, it's still a very credible threat and being able to out-run and threaten MC30cs from a good distance puts in up there overall.  The biggest play from Demolisher is being able to deliver the good ol' triple-tap, forcing a Brace and then Avenger will finish the rest.  I don't think there's a single ship in the game that can take firepower of that magnitude.

Next on the list is Suppressor.  This little guy is amazing in the current meta.  Again, it's the smaller things in Armada that really makes so enjoyable for me as a player.  Suppressor is incredibly strong right now because of its innate ability to hurr hurr, suppress infuriating defense tokens from everything around it; namely Scatter and Brace.  Even if it parks its ass behind the ISD-II and blows itself up after ramming into its ass, I'll be fine with it as long as it shuts down all the defense tokens that I care about and letting Avenger tear them a new asshole.  Not that it really matters because once Avenger enters kill range of flotillas (and it will, because most people forget the ISDs are actually fast), 4 blues on natural attack will most certainty do work.  Activation advantage is only temporary if you're able to reliably kill multiple ships a turn.  The Comms Net is only there to feed my ISD with setup tokens, but it's the title that really matters and the reason for bringing him.

Lastly, we take a brief look at the squadron selection since it's pretty straight forward.  You have Vader who does the best squadron damage in the game and has Escort.  Escort pulls the aggro off of Howl, which means the rest of the TIE Fighters keep hitting hard.  The reason why I need them to hit hard is because of the one-two punch with big squadron dice, followed by Avenger AA.  This combination is seriously deadly and it cannot be underappreciated.  Dengar is there to provide a little wiggle room and more Mithel play, since Mithel's job is to get around damage distributors like Biggs and Gallant Haven by doing indirect damage.  The Counter + Howl + Swarm also makes attacking into the TIEball a bad trade.  The weakness to taking TIEs however, is their serious vulnerability to enemy AA as well.  Thankfully, their damage potential is high enough that they cannot be ignored and must be dealt with.

The biggest weakness I see in this list is the drops and activations not being up to par with today's "standards".  I see a lot of 4 activation, 8 drop lists out there so deployment will be a bit trickier than most.  At 385, it's not the best initiative bid although it is pretty decent.  Activation wise, it's good at 3, but it can surely do better if I had more.  However, this means that MSU ships that do high damage with higher activation than me will give me the biggest problems.  The reason for that is because squadrons are built for anti-squadron, I'm flying around in a huge target, and getting DP'd by two shrimps from both sides is not the way I want to go.  This is a bad matchup I'm willing to take considering that the list will be really strong against the more squadron-heavy lists that rely on squadrons to do damage, and the faster initiative with two anti-ship capitals will give me the upper hand in exchanges where they only have 1 heavy hitter/flanker like the MC30c.  The only thing I'm worried about is the Admonition at this point.

Alright, well there you have it.  I'm working on another variation of this list that subs out a few squadrons for a Raider-I, but I will need a few more games with this list before I commit.  Besides, I have another Ackbar list in the works and it's going to be a difficult choice for which one I'm going to bring to Regionals.

Armada: Wave 5 Commander Sato

Commander Sato reporting for duty!

Wave 5 brought a lot of really strong game elements to the Rebels so what's better to celebrate than to make a list with the most notable commander from Star Wars Rebels?!  Let's bring in Commander Jun Sato himself and set him up with one of the meanest lists this side of the galaxy.  I'm going to fit in Sato ranged MC30c shenanigans, Gallant Haven, the new Biggsball.  If that wasn't enough, I'm going to throw in some Ketsu Onyo so everyone stays put while the Biggsball dismantles and frustrates enemy squadrons to no end.

Check it out:

SATO 
Author: HERO
Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 400/400
Activations/Drops: 4/8

Commander: Commander Sato
Assault Objective: Most Wanted
Defense Objective: Fighter Ambush
Navigation Objective: Superior Positions

[ flagship ] Assault Frigate Mark II B (72 points)
-  Commander Sato ( 32 points)
-  Gallant Haven ( 8 points)
-  Toryn Farr ( 7 points)
-  Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
= 126 total ship cost

MC30c Scout Frigate (69 points)
-  Admonition ( 8 points)
-  Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
-  XI7 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
-  Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
= 92 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
-  Bright Hope ( 2 points)
-  Bomber Command Center ( 8 points)
= 28 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
-  Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 20 total ship cost

1 Ketsu Onyo ( 22 points)
1 Wedge Antilles ( 19 points)
1 Biggs Darklighter ( 19 points)
1 Jan Ors ( 19 points)
1 "Dutch" Vander ( 16 points)
3 X-Wing Squadrons ( 39 points)

Let me break this down first with my choice of flagship, which is the Gallant Haven.  The reason why I chose to put Sato in this with Toryn Farr is because I'm packing an asston of 4-dice blues on my squadrons so the re-rolls to blue are definitely appreciated.  The Biggsball moving with the Gallant Haven with Jan Ors in the mix is borderline obscene.  Let's just say your opponent rolls huge and scores 4 hits on one of your fighters that Biggs is on.  Jan braces this down to 2, Gallant reduces it to 1, and Biggs moves the last damage to a random X-Wing of your choice.  If this isn't top lols, I don't know what is.  A 2 hit attack is completely negated after a Brace because of Gallant Haven if within range.  The total damage potential from enemy squadrons reads as: 1-2 hits = 0 damage, and 3-4 hits = 1 damage which gets distributed among the X-Wings.

The only thing you really need to pull this off is a decent amount of Escorts to pass damage to, Biggs, Jan Ors and Gallant Haven.  The rest of the squads you see here is completely up to you!  I currently have the classic Dutch and Wedge in there, but you can easily sub out someone like Wedge for Norra Wexely for example if you want to increase the damage of your squadrons.  If you want, you can also throw Tycho in there if you want to activate Sato's ability with the MC30c quicker and make sure you can always stay on target (or switch as needed).  Either way, I'd like to keep Ketsu Onyo in there because I think she offers so much utility to the Rebel forces.  The best thing that stands out for her is her ability to softlock Dengar's movement and have Dutch/Wedge erase him from the board.

When it comes to how you use this list, you basically have the Biggsball follow Gallant Haven around so you  can get into combat and still be within range of Gallant Haven.  This is where your Biggsball is the most obscene.  In essence, you send your fighter wing into the enemy and have the MKII follow up.  At around the same time, you start blasting away with your MC30c on a flank or in a good position so you can start using your reds and replace them with blacks that you can re-roll with Ordnance Experts to trigger APTs.  The objective is to place a few long-distance crit effects on the intended target because once you get in close and replace all your reds with blacks with OE re-rolls, XI7s and APTs, the target should be really dead or dying.  Ideally by the time your shrimp can do its work in close combat, your fighter/bombers will have already man-handled the enemy squadrons and go full nerd with Bomber and BCC re-rolls on whatever you're trying to kill.  Even the MKII can put in some work because of all the black dice you're subbing in.  If you're fearing for Sato's life inside the MKII, you can also put Sato on the Comms Net GR-75 sitting in the back as needed.

The big weakness I see with a list like this is that like most squadron lists, a lot of the damage is reliant on the points that you spent on your squadrons.  In this example, I spent all 134 points on taking what I consider to be a really strong fighter/bomber mix.  However, if your opponent is playing a longer-ranged fleet that can drop some serious pew-pew from range e.g. Rebel MSU or Ackbar for example, then you might run into some serious trouble if your ships start blowing up before they can get into range.  This is one of the biggest issues about having a fleet that has range-restrictions, both in squadron movement and in synergy range ala Gallant Haven's meager range of 1.  Regardless, it's still a strong list with a lot of flavor and classic Rebel synergy.

How are you guys planning to run Sato?  Maybe taking some A-Wings will be nice.

Armada: Wave 5 squadrons

Exciting times ahead, get ready for some shenanigans!

One of the most exciting prospects about Wave 5 is all the awesome new squadrons that have been introduced to the game.  I'll tell you one thing right now:  The new squadrons will change the meta more so than the ships in Wave 5.  Not only will they have an affect on how players will utilize the squadrons themselves, but how players will adapt to them because some of them will change the meta single-handily i.e. Rhymer, Firespray..etc.

With that being said, let's analyze which squadrons I think are the biggest winners in Wave 5.  This includes all of the Corellian Conflict squadies as well.

Correllian Conflict

To begin, I think all of the "elite" variants of the base squadrons such as Tempest Squadron or Gamma Squadron are great.  They're great because for a measly few points, in most cases just one point, you're getting a squadron that's simply a better version of the regular version.  In some cases, you have drastic differences such as the sniping Saber Squadron vs the generic the TIE Interceptor, but for most part you simply have a better product depending on what keyword or alterations they made to the card.  Another great thing here is that for most of the altered squadrons, for an extra point here and there, you're paying for another version of the squadron that is a great in multi-role.  Green Squadron, for example, is a slightly weaker A-Wing but is a speed-5 black bomber, whereas Tempest Squadron keeps its intended role as Escort but gains Bomber with its black ship dice.  That's just really amazing.

As for all the unique pilots to come out of the CC expansion, there a lot of winners here.  In fact, this is probably the most important thing to come out of the CC campaign for competitive players out there.  Let's explore them by faction really quick:

Rebels:

• Biggs Darklighter - Biggs is arguably the strongest pilot to come out of this set IMO.  His ability is absolutely insane because it gives Escort squadrons an amazing amount of longevity.  In a vacuum, the ability doesn't seem all that strong, but when combined with other defensive options such as Jan's bracing, Gallant Haven and the fact that the timing allows you to combine all the forementioned that it gives way to a whole new squadron strategy by itself:  That's right, Biggballs are now a thing.  Pun intended.
• Norra Wexley - One of the more popular strategies I've seen is Y-Wing spam.  Now, this isn't even because of all the craziness you saw in the World Championship, but Y-Wings with Gallant Haven and Ruthless Strategist is a real force to be reckoned with.  When you sprinkle Norra Wexley into all of this with BCCs, you drastically increased the rate in which you can kill enemy ships with Y-Wings as long as Norra is active.  Her ability works best with black dice, so when you have black dice that you can fish, that's where she is most powerful.
• Shara Bey - A strong A-Wing pilot that allows you to maul squadrons in return when you're attacked.  She doesn't work well with Escort elements and only truly shines when you use her to tie up squadrons without Intel or when you take a bunch of A-Wings by themselves.  While strong, she's still an A-Wing in an environment that demands a lot of HP due to how much damage that's coming in from all sources.
• Ten Numb - A really powerful ability, but difficult to trigger because it requires a blue crit in order to activate.  While this isn't really a huge problem because you can always fish this out with Toryn Farr, this is still a specific trigger on a speed-2 B-Wing.  Once this does trigger though, this is huge damage that can't really be negated by a lot of sources in the game because it's not considered an attack.  Against more fragile Imperial squadrons like TIEs, the effects can be devastating.

Imperials:

• Valen Rudor - Pure damage and an amazing ability for cheap.  Throwing out 3 blacks with Swarm for 13 points is good enough, add in the fact that he can't be attacked as long as you're engaged with another squadrons is godlike levels of good.  I think this might be my favorite buy for the Imperial side of things.
• Zertik Strom - Not a fan personally, mainly because I think this would have been better as a Rebels ability.  Throwing out all those reds can result in big and unpredictable damage spikes, but you typically want to keep your Imperial squadrons alive instead of having to plink them for damage.
• Ciena Rae - A more evasive Interceptor that does good damage while negating enemy attack dice in return (both squadron and ship), but I'm not so sure about the amount of points I'm spending for her.
• Captain Jonus - Unlike Rhymer who likes to be further away from the action and plink damage from afar, Jonus likes to be closer to the action so it can activate its mini-Home One-ish beacon that can hand out free accuracies.  Of course we know this is not always possible because Intel sources can always be killed, or Jonus can be intercepted, but handing out accuracies in a meta filled with annoying little flotillas is always a boon.

To sum it up a bit, I think the big winners out of the CC set for squadrons is Biggs, Norra and in some ways, Captain Jonus.  These are the squadrons that will change up the meta the most because they allow the user to change the way the entire squadron force behaves.  Biggs drastically improves the durability of the squadrons, Norra drasitically improves their damage velocity to ships, and Captain Jonus paints enemy flotillas with middle-fingers of accuracy.  The rest of the bunch mainly benefit themselves in terms of doing more damage or have their little quirks, but its these three that truly stand out to me.

Wave 5

As if CC squadrons weren't enough goodness, here comes some more Wave 5 squadrons from the fighter packs!  For ease of viewing, I think I'm just going to combine the ships with their unique pilots since they're a bit more straightforward than the elite squadrons from CC.

Rebels:

• E-Wing + Corran Horn - What can I say?  E-Wings are good for 15 points.  The thing that makes them a solid choice is that they have great threat range with their 4 speed and Snipe, but they can also do work in close range with 4 blues and Bomber.  Corran is just an upgraded E-Wing with better stats and Rogue.
• Lancer-class + Ketsu Onyo - These squadies are basically the Rebel-equivalent to what a Firespray should be.  They move faster, have less health, doesn't throw as much dice in blues but throws out the single black bomber dice instead.  Having the Grit is just an extra bonus.  However, this is not what excites me.  What really gets me excited is that Ketsu Onyo is one of the strongest squadrons I've ever seen.  Her ability is just fantastic, as it offers Rebels some serious movement control and completely hampers the usefulness of Intel entities such as Dengar.  Even though you can move, you're still forced to obey the movement rules that not only limits the threat range of Rhymerballs, but also forces more fragile Imperial-equivalent fighters into a battle of attrition with sturdier Rebel craft.  Ketsu Onyo is a game-changer, there's no doubt about that:  She hampers the effectiveness of both Dengar and Rhymer while severely locking down Rebels as well since the majority of their squadrons only move 3.  Oh, and she has Scatter on top of Brace on 4 HP which basically makes her the Rebel equivalent of Dengar.  Amazing for 22 points.
• VCX-100 + Hera Syndulla - I'm a fan of the VCX-100, but not that big of a fan of Hera unfortunatately.  She's just too expensive for what she does for 28 points, and she loses a lot of what makes the VCX-100 good in the first place.  The 3 movement on top of 8 HP gives this ship a fair amount of flexibility; especially when you factor in that it has both Strategic and Relay.  Strategic can be really good with a lot of the new missions and I really dislike the fact that Hera didn't get this on top of what she already had.  I don't think giving a few ships Rogue is that great when the majority of the Rebel forces like spamming squadron commands if given he opportunity.
• Z-95 + Lieutenant Blount - Here comes to Rebel Bees!  Let the randomness begin with some fickle red dice, less oppourunity to deny enemy tokens but a chance that you'll do some insane double-hit damage shenningans.  Having natural Swarm helps out dramatically with their red dice and having Lieutenant Blount in the works here will definitely increase damage all-around.  A couple of things to note here:  These squadrons are actually meta-changers not in the fact that they gave Rebels a swarm-equivalent fighter for similar costs to the Imperial TIE Fighters, but they also gave Rebels a cheap deployment option as well.  This drastically increases the amount of deploys a MC80 strike group can have for example, while still retaining a sizeable and threatening fighter presence.

Imperials:

• Lambda Shuttle + Colonel Jendon - The shuttle is great in many ways and having Relay 2 vs. the Rebels 1 and Strategic is just icing on the cake.  Having two black dice, 3 speed and 6 HP for the same amount of points is a very reliable way to play more to the objective for a very minimal investment.  Colonel Jendon also makes things quite exciting because for 20 points you are essentially paying for some Yavaris/Adar Tallon Rebel bullshit effect but with more flexibility since you have squadron movement and can Relay off a Gozanti.  However, like Hera, you are trading away Strategic to do something cool, but I like this ability slightly more.  Being able to double-tap with Vader, Bossk or IG-88 is no joke, but at the same time, you have to slightly rework your squadron line-up to include them in the first place.
• TIE Phantom + Whisper - Not a fan, neither in the special ability, or the named pilot.  Throwing out 4 blues is fine and all, but you're basically a more expensive Interceptor that relies on some gimmicks to make things happen.  The best case scenario for Cloak is to activate pretty late after everyone else has attacked, attack, and then in the Squadron phase, you remove yourself from combat after.  While this is great in theory, squadron brawls normally turn into a giant mess and having this kind of precision on the table with flak and Rogue mixed with Intel everywhere is just messy.  Maybe it's because I don't like the mechanic that I dislike this squadron, but I'm waiting for someone to completely destroy me before I can pass true judgement.  For now, I think I'll pass.
• TIE Defender + Maarek Steele - Now we're talking.  I think the TIE Defender is pretty well priced:  It's fast, it's durable, it throws out a good mix of blues and blacks to token blocking and damage consistency, and it has Bomber as well.  Maarek is basically a better version of the Defender because he can always turn a black dice into a hit/crit and the additional blue when attacking ships can always be turned to a crit as well.  The Grit and Brace tokens are just icing.
• VT-49 Decimator + Morna Kee - Not a bad ship, but I'm not sure how often you're going to get away feeling too good that you've spent 22 points for one of these guys.  The 3 speed is not entirely too impressive, and the damage result is not that much different than a YV-666.  Sure, throwing out 3 blues vs. ships is a lot better and having Rogue with Counter 1 is always good, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to dish out 22 points for one of these suckas, especially when I'm immediately staring back at the 15 point YV-666s.  Morna Kee is just a better version of the Decimators, but accuracies are going to hurt her ability and she's just really too expensive for my tastes.

Honestly, I think Rebels really it take home this time with the squadron game.  First they gained Biggs and Norra, but with the Z-95s/Blount and Ketsu Onyo, I really think the Rebel squadrons are really going to change the face of the meta in the next couple of months.  Just having Z-95s on the field is going to give Rebels an entirely different playstyle that their opponent has to prepare for, which is in stark contrast that is the invincible ball that is Biggs and Gallant Haven.

Overall, while Imperials gained a few nice squadrons such as the Defender, Maarek or Jonus, they just don't carve the landscape as the Rebels.  However, this doesn't mean that the Imperials have suffered more and that the game is imbalanced.  It's very important to note that for the majority of this game's life, the meta has been shaped by Imperials.  From the Demolisher, to ISD, to Rhymer to Firesprays, this game has been in constant flux (which is a very good thing).  With Rebel squadrons becoming so strong from Wave 5, I think it's going to be a very exciting time to see players explore new (or old) ways to counter what they're going to be seeing very soon.

Armada: Wave 5 ships and upgrades

More options the better!

When it comes down to Wave 5 ships, I really don't think they're going to change the meta all that much.  The one thing that I enjoy about this game and each wave that FFG puts out is that regardless of power level, they're going to provide comfortable options for players to explore and experiment with.  For now though, I don't think they're too crazy to write home about.  It's going to the be the unique squadrons that do the most work, especially those on the Rebels side and I'll get to that later.

The Imperial CL is a pretty good ship,but it's one of those ships that are not really cheap enough where you can take a whole bunch of them and utilize them like the TRC90.  The best upgrade to take on the Arquintens IMO is to equip it very similar to a TRC90:  Give it the Captain Needa and replace the Contain so you can feel comfortable taking the TRC with it.  This will bring up the price a messily 9 points; putting the cheapest variant of this particular configuration to 63 points, but this is exactly what you want to do with this ship.  It's not durable enough that you can give it too many upgrades, and it's not powerful enough in stock weaponry like the Gladiator or MC30c where you need to give it upgrades to make it effective.  It fits comfortably in a section where all you need is Needa/TRCs on one of these ships for damage consistency, or you want to slap on Dual Turbolaser Turrets and just call it a day.  Another problem I see with the ship is that it can put out some reliable broadside-based red dice, but doesn't have enough Evades to consistently use TRCs (which is the best damage upgrade for these kind of ships).  Of course, if you really want reliability with this ship, you'll take Vader, but I'm not a Vader fan because I don't think he's cost-effective.

Now when we look at the Phoenix Home capital for the Rebels, I'm not so sure I see a ship that has a place in the current meta.  Hear me out for a sec here:  The ship itself is not bad, it's kitted out with some decent upgrade options and it has a solid defense token spread.  The main problem I see with the ship is not in its ability to deliver fleet-wide bonuses, it's the fact that it's a solid mainstay carrier in a faction that already has great carrier options.  Both the AF MKII and MC80C are very good in the current meta because of their durability and great title options.  Everyone has a giant hard-on right now for the Gallant Haven and for good reason, but more on this later.  What's important to note is that the Phoneix Home is a solid ship, it's just a cheaper alternative to other great carrier options in the Rebel fleet, but it lacks the noteworthy titles and durability.  Not having ECM is just really painful.  A really quick note about the fleet-wide abilities that the ship can muster, they're good, but not good enough to justify taking the ship specifically to benefit the rest of the fleet.  Maybe if we're playing larger point games like 500 or 600 points that having a ship that can buff the entire fleet is great, but neither the movement or shield options are exciting for me because commands can just do it better.  Most of the time, you don't want the entire fleet to move or heal, you only want one ship to do it.  The increased speed on all squadron activations is really nice for Rebels because most of their stuff floats around 3.  With all the FCTs floating around to keep pushing the slower fighters up, this is one of the best buffs in the game to get everything moving.

As for upgrades and commander options, I'm only really excited about a couple of cards here.  Minister Tua is great for enabling ECM on ships that otherwise wouldn't have the option, but she goes against a philosophy I have with fleet building which is to not take superfluous upgrades on something that doesn't really need it.  While this is a great upgrade option for the ISD-I or Interdictor, you still sacrifice an officer slot to take it so be careful not to go too overboard.  Reinforced Blast Doors is another one of those cards that look really great when you first look at it, but it's a defensive slot card that competes with ECM and ECM will almost certainly prevent more damage per game than RBD.  One thing to really keep in mind is that the ability to prevent damage will always be stronger than healing damage.  Besides, I think the only ship in the game that can really take advantage of this card right now is the MC80 Assault variant.  Since it's the only ship in the game currently that has double defensive slots and thus can dual-wield ECMs and blast doors, this is a great upgrade.  On the same note of defensive upgrades, we have Damage Control Officer.  This is a solid upgrade because it stops things like APT dead in its tracks and gets you more mileage from your Contain, but there's a pretty limited list of ships that can really utilize this card and it also takes up an officer slot.  Major Derlin is another one of those defensive upgrade options, but he's a limited use version of Bright Hope that is 7 points and takes up an Officer slot.  Yeah no, I'm going to pass on this one being too useful.  Last, I want to talk about Rapid Launch Bays.  What can I say?  It's a great card and it allows you to dump your B-Wings or other speed 2 crappers in front of people and just go to town.  AFAIK, there's a current debate right now going on the forums whether or not you can activate with squadron, deploy, and attack in the same activation using RLBs.  If this is the case, then this card is amazing, if not, then it's only OK because you'll be dumping your B-Wings out and then waiting a bit before you get to go to work.

Lastly, let's talk briefly about commanders:  I'm not feeling Moff Jerjerrod because honestly, Nav commands are king and you'll get more mileage out of someone like Motti because he's right there.  As for Commander Sato, a bit of mixed feelings on this dude.  He's pretty much a blank card if you can't get your fighters to connect with the enemy ship but once you do, the guy is pretty insane.  This gives you two real trains of mentality here and that's if you want to enable him early, and throw some Phoenix Squadron A-Wings in there (Tycho comes to mind here), or do a deathball with some Gallant Haven craziness and just have him roll in deep and then go to town.  Either way, he's not active for the first couple of turns in the game and that doesn't quite sit well with me.  Not to mention if all of your squadrons get dead, he's pretty much a blank card again.  Sato is definitely one of those polarizing commanders where there's multiple ways to disable him, but once he's active he's really good because he allows all kinds of ranged shennigans e.g. long-ranged black-swapping APTs with MC30cs.

Next stop: Wave 5 squadrons!

Armada: Wave 5 articles coming soon

If you haven't seen it already, stop everything and do it now!

Phew! The holidays have been really crazy but I hope all of you have had a great time so far.

I will be available to write in the next couple of days and I'll be unloading on this blog with a huge amount of material that will cover all the cool new stuff we got for Armada.  My Regionals isn't until sometime in mid Feb, but so much has changed in the last couple of months that I'm actually thinking about going Imps this time around.  However, I might entertain the option to bring my giant space cigar as well since I think Home One is in a pretty target-saturated meta.

I'll be traveling still in the next couple of days until I'm at my parents' house, but I'll try to sneak in an article or two if I have time.

Here's a preview of some of the articles you'll see from me in the next couple of days:

• Wave 5 squadrons and ships review
• Results from Worlds, new Regionals data, the meta going forward
• Some new lists I want to try with this data in mind; both Imperials and Rebels
• How I intend on prepping for Regionals, what I plan on taking and why

Btw, Rogue One was amazing.  It's my favorite Star Wars movie to date, but I'm also very sad about Carrie Fisher passing.  May the force be with you Princess!

Star Wars LCG and Imperial Assault

Going in deep boys.

This is a quick and small update that in the last couple of weeks, I've jumped face-first both Star Wars Imperial Assault and Star Wars LCG.  Yes, I went crazy and bought all the things.  Do any of you guys play?  I want to gauge some interest so maybe I can start writing some articles about them.

I'll probably end up writing a bunch on both for the hell of it anyway!

Armada: Which squadrons to take?

I freaking love myself some A-Wings.

Trying out a hybrid Ackbar tournament build using the template I used for my Wave 4 tournament list here.  Basically, I'm running into a little bit of a thought bubble, and I'm not sure what to take when it comes to squadron composition.

Basically, you have this template here:

[ flagship ] MC80 Command Cruiser (106 points)
-  Admiral Ackbar  ( 38  points)
-  Home One  ( 7  points)
-  Intel Officer  ( 7  points)
-  Engine Techs  ( 8  points)
-  Electronic Countermeasures  ( 7  points)
-  XI7 Turbolasers  ( 6  points)
-  Leading Shots  ( 4  points)
= 183 total ship cost

Assault Frigate Mark II B (72 points)
-  Gunnery Team  ( 7  points)
-  Electronic Countermeasures  ( 7  points)
-  XI7 Turbolasers  ( 6  points)
= 92 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
-  Comms Net  ( 2  points)
= 20 total ship cost

You have 295 points here out of 400 total, and I want to stay below <385 bid.="" p="">
This basically gives me 90 points to play with when it comes to having a good bid, and having some decent squadron coverage.  It has dawned pretty painfully on me in the last couple of days playing IRL and on Vassal that try as I may, I don't think the 3-4 YTs are good enough in a meta now filled with BCC and other threats out there.  We already knew that going in, but I needed to some hard games vs. some competitive gamers that share the same mindset to confirm it.  Either way, we now have 90 points to spend on squadrons and/or other upgrades.

Here are some things floating around in my head:

• 8x A-Wings - T2 squadron queues from H1 and MKII, 24 blue alpha, 5-range threat and Counter 2.  8 black dice to use against ships.  32 hull total.  Even though these guys want commands, I'm not sure I want to use any just to keep these guys going.
• Dash + 4x YTs - Same points as the above.  Throw a squadron token on the H1 and launch all 5 into the enemy on T2.  20 blue alpha, 4-range threat.  Dash has Bomber and some brace tokens, but otherwise 30 hull total.  4 blacks and Dash's Bomber black vs. ships.  Big bonus here is that all ships are Rogue, which frees up commands on all ships.
• 4x A-Wings, Dash + YT - 4 points less than the above.  H1 can throw A-Wings on T2, transport can throw the other 2.  20 blue alpha, mixed 4-5 threat range.  Some have counter, some have more HP, some have Rogue.  A mixed bag over here, but still effective.

The first thing we should ask ourselves here is:
Which one of these will be most effective in the new meta?  Think Rieekan Aces, Imperial Aces, Rhymerballs, Fireballs, and just the oddball Y-Wing spam or TIE spam.  I'm not looking to beat a dedicated anti-fighter list, but I do want something that can fight the meta squadron-threat so my bigger ships can get to work.

Just some food for thought.

Armada: Analyzing Ackbar 2.0

Ackbar 2.0, let's do this!

Hot damn, I can't believe it's almost been a year since I started playing this game.  We've been through a lot together, tried a ton of different lists and experimented with a lot of different commanders and what not.  After doing a lot of soul-searching in the last couple of days for which commander I want to bring in the next tournament, I think I'm going have to go with the king of fishlords and go with Ackbar again.  Let me tell you guys why.

For one, I want to talk about the latest iteration of my list.  I'll tell you one thing's for damn sure, and that it's pretty much the same list that I've been playing the last couple of months.  There's a lot of iteration for sure, but I've managed to narrow it down to this:

ACKBAR 2.0
Author: HERO
Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 383/400
Commander: Admiral Ackbar

Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Intel Sweep

[ flagship ] MC80 Command Cruiser (106 points)
-  Admiral Ackbar  ( 38  points)
-  Home One  ( 7  points)
-  Intel Officer  ( 7  points)
-  Engine Techs  ( 8  points)
-  Electronic Countermeasures  ( 7  points)
-  XI7 Turbolasers  ( 6  points)
-  Leading Shots  ( 4  points)
= 183 total ship cost

Assault Frigate Mark II B (72 points)
-  Intel Officer  ( 7  points)
-  Gunnery Team  ( 7  points)
-  Electronic Countermeasures  ( 7  points)
-  XI7 Turbolasers  ( 6  points)
= 99 total ship cost

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
-  Jaina's Light  ( 2  points)
-  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points)
= 53 total ship cost

3 YT-2400s ( 48 points)

There a lot of reasons why I've taken to go with this iteration of the list to go into the competitive season, and here's my arguments for and against it.  First, I'd like to list out all the pluses and minuses that the list has going for in respects to the current Wave 4 metagame.

Strengths:

• Damage: Big, long-range, accurate damage with Ackbar's extra dice, Home One's accuracy support, XI7s and TRCs.
• Control: Strong control elements with free accuracies from Home One and Intel Officers to shut down defenses.
• Durability:  Both the MC80 and MKII are not very easy to kill, especially with ECMs.
• Initiative:  Having a 383 bid with all of the above benefits is a huge boon.

Weaknesses:

• Limited air cover: 3x YT-2400s is good, but they're going to go down eventually.
• Lack of activations:  With only three ships and most likely having initiative, there is a good chance I will be telegraphed quite easily on the battlefield.
• Lack of deploys:  This also means that I will be out-deployed during setup, so my opponents can telegraph my movements even further.
• Big target:  There's no hiding it really.  The MC80 has the biggest target painted over its head.

To expand on this a little further, let's look at some of the archetypes that I will be facing and how I think I will handle each one of them.

Favorable:

• Big ship lists - Any other 3-ship capital ship list that isn't built exactly like this one.. especially when I hold the initiative.  After all, this list was built to fight against and destroy ISD-II lists when they were the new hotness.
• Control lists - Most control lists featuring the Inderdictor either has one kingpin that does all the damage, or doesn't do much damage itself.  This list in particular can do a lot of damage to a single target, or maul the Interdictor itself because of the lack of defensive options.
• Brawler lists without initiative - One of the changes I've made compared to my previous incarnation of this list was to drop a YT for a better bid.  This means that for a close-ranged brawler like the Demo or MC30c, if I can outspeed you with my MC80, I will most likely destroy before you can respond.

Unfavorable:

• Swarm lists - Just way too many activations for me to handle for the most part.  While I'm not really concerned about non-damage activations, I'm worried about being boxed in.  This is the big advantage that swarm-lists have an that's the ability to telegraph my movement.  How a flotilla can ever block a MC80 really confuses me sometimes.
• Bomber heavy lists - Either in the way of Rhymer/Fireballs or Rieekan/Dodonna Carriers, any list that can put out a huge amount of bomber support with BCC will give this list fits.  At that point, I'm not sure if I can out-damage them in-time because there is just too much damage that can happen as I try and close in for the kill.
• Brawler lists with initiative - On the other hand, if you have a Demo or MC30c list that outspeeds this list, I'm in deep trouble.  A triple-tapping Demo can pretty much one-round any ship in the game, and the Home One with Ackbar is the juiciest target of them all.

I think, looking at the matchups, if I was to face something that is considered double favorable or unfavorable e.g. Big ship list that was built to control or a swarm list that outruns me, these would mean seriously good times or bad times.  This also means that if I have something unfavorable, but I also have a favorable advantage somewhere e.g. out-activated but I have initiative, then it could be anyone's game.  Of course, at the end of the day it's going to be more of the admiral that makes a difference vs. the list, but it's going to be every list has its strengths and weaknesses that can be exploited by another list.  This actually one of my favorite things about Armada thus far, and not one list has been running around dominant for too long.

As for what which lists do I expect being in the meta, or at least meta locally?  I have no idea.  One of the best things about going into a new wave is that the meta changes and changes a lot.  When I take a look at all the Wave 4 ships, one of the biggest things that stands out to me is that all the ships are weak accuracies and control.  The big ships don't have defensive countermeasures to deal with multiple forms of free control, and the smaller flotillas can get completely mauled if you shut down their Scatter.  This is one of the reasons why I think this list will be very effective in the new meta, however, there is always the growing threat that bombers have become a lot stronger.  While I think the current 383 bid will outspeed most brawler lists, the higher initiative does not entirely solve the problem that a full on bomber-heavy build with BCC might completely wreck my face.  The gameplan for those kind of lists will be to engage in a damage race with them as soon as possible.

Well, here you go guys.  This is a full breakdown of my current Ackbar list and hopefully I will be doing more of these in the future.

Armada: In response to repair strategies

Look, tiny little repairboats!

Over the last couple of days, I've seen a series of threads and army lists pop up theorizing on how to best capitalize the new Repair Crews flotillas with Project Experts on the Interdictor.  While this is all good and dandy, I think there's a couple of things to consider before one sets himself on a journey to build this kind of list.

Here's my take on how players should view repair-related strategies:  It roughly breaks down into two key arguments for me whenever I decide to explore a build that focuses on preservation and attrition.  The first one argument is the environment, the landscape of the games you play in, or roughly the metagame of whatever tournament that you're playing in.  For the sake of this argument, I'm only going to use competitive environments even though the principles discussed here can apply to even the most casual of games.  Whenever you examine the landscape that you play in, you have the factor in what kind lists that people are playing.  In my environment, I see a multitude of different competitive builds ranging from MC30s, Demos, Rebel Carriers, Swarms and Rhymer/Fireballs.  So what do I mean when I say break it down and what it has to do with whether or not repair mechanisms will be effective?  I like to think of it as an analysis on damage per activation:  Roughly how much damage do you expect a certain source to do against one of your ships within one activation.  When you start profiling attack sources like this, you start to have a much clearer picture of which ones do obscene amounts of damage in very-high spikes vs. those that do consistent damage over time.  The best example of this would be a ISD-II vs. something like a TRC90.  While the TRC90 can put out pretty impressive and consistent damage, it doesn't nearly have the same and game-changing damage swing that the ISD-II can deliver.  When you start factoring in upgrades like the XI7s and Intel Officers, you can clearly start to see what kind of damage X source can do compared to Y.  Where some damage trickles in like squadron-related damage, others swing hard enough that your ship can explode e.g. Demolisher.

This is key when determining whether or not a repair-heavy build will be effective.  While you can read some battle reports online, you rarely get the feel of exactly how much damage is being done over a course of a game.  Repair, whether by command or by activation via Repair Crews on a transport, are done in activation order.  Naturally, it will be more effective against damage that slowly trickles over time vs. the damage spikes that can destroy a ship in a round or two.  Of course, dice can always be finicky, but the average damage should be able to tell a pretty clear story.  After all, you can't repair a dead ship, and the fact that activation order plays a key role in whether or not you want damage lifted, or whether or not the repair party might be too late to make a difference.  The best picture that I can paint right now is imagine that you're trying to heal a MC80 from the wrath of a ISD-II when that player has the initiative.  While your little repair boats and shield maidens might be able to heal the damage that trickles in, it will not prevent your ship from being near two-shotted on average dice as long as certain upgrades are in place.  Not if you don't go in there with a gameplan ahead of time (more on this in a sec).  Just something to think about when trying to design any list that wants to win through attrition.

The second component here is command efficiency.  When I look at the repair boats and the Interdictor/Projection Experts combo, I don't see just heals.  The heals are an afterthought for me because what I'm thinking is that I no longer need to queue certain commands on my other ships.  In the situation that I have a couple healbots on my side of the table, the first thing I will be looking for is being able to focus on other commands such as moving into more opportune locations, or blowing them away with Concentrate Fire.  I think overall, players need to stop looking at the text that Repair Crews can heal 1 card worth of damage, but rather that is 3 engineering points worth of command efficiency that your ISD no longer needs to execute.  Of course, when you work in conjunction with the ISD healing as well, you get double the benefit.  Once again, this only comes into play if you know what kind of environment you're fighting in, whether or not you know how to plan for that damage, and how well you can execute it when the time comes.  The example here would be queuing up Engineering on an ISD that wants to see combat on T3 expecting big damage, then on T3, hopefully your healers kick in at the same time as your Engineering command the damage your opponent thought he was going to do disappears in an instant.  This, is how you really win the attrition war:  That's to bait your opponent into an overconfident/superior position and then flip the tables on him.  Tasty.

Armada: Making the Liberty work

Gotta make this beauty work!

First, I want to say that I really like the fact that the MC-80 Liberty-class ships offers a really unique playstyle to the Rebels.  I think in order to get this article right, let's first talk about what I like about the ship, followed by its weaknesses.

The first thing I like about the ship is that it is fast.  Having speed-3 automatically makes this one of the faster ships that Rebels have, especially when you consider that it's on a large base and has the firepower roughly equal to an ISD-II, or an Ackbar Home One.  Not only is it a naturally fast ship, but it also has the option to take Engine Techs; thus making it currently the fastest ship in the game of this size.  With a few maneuvers queued up, you can get this ship from one side of the map to another; making it a capital ship flanker that is unlike anything in the game right now.  With Madine as your commander, you are more than capable of doing some outrageous amounts of maneuvers if you have Engine Techs on the ship.

The second thing I like about the ship is that its armament is quite unique.  Not the fact that it comes with 4 reds and 3 blues, any idiot can tell you number stats, but it's about its unique layout of two Turbolaser upgrade slots.  From a design standpoint, it is crystal clear that the ship is meant to be a pure damage-dealer with a minimalist view of protection.  What does this mean exactly?  I think it means that you should look into combinations to do as much possible damage as possible with interesting upgrade options.  For me, the setup of having Mon Karren and XI7s is more than enough to carry the day.  However, some people will prefer upgrades out there that might offer a little bit to their game depending on what they want to accomplish.  For example, Dodonna might be able to take advantage of the same configuration above but add XX-9s to additional critical shenanigans.

I don't really see a third point going for the ship here, but I want to elaborate a little more on the cute little things this ship can do when it comes to damage.  I've already mentioned the Mon Karren title, but I want to revisit this for a second so everyone knows that I'm talking about one of the best damage-pushing titles in the game.  What this title does is that it allows you to virtually shut down every single defense token outside the first one with no other conditions.  It's like a non-specific Avenger, or a less restrictive HTT.  When I first looked at this title, I was completely blown away.  Let me provide a few damage examples here:

Example #1 - Shooting at ISDs or MC80s with Mon Karren and XI7s.
Round #1 - Let's say you roll 8 damage.  Regardless of ECM or accuracy, you IO the Brace.  He has no choice but to Brace and take 4 damage directly to shields.  If you did 9 damage and there was a crit, not only would he be unable to Redirect, but he would also take the crit because he can't Contain.
Round #2 - Second round of combat without the Brace available.  Let's say you make the same roll.  He can only choose to Redirect or Contain, but since Redirect will only negate one damage because of XI7s, he wisely chooses to Contain, but eats 8 damage directly to hull.  Since you IO'd the Contain, it is gone for the rest of the game.

Example #2 - Shooting at a MC30c with Mon Karren and XI7s.
The example here is less technical and more about application.  When you shoot at this ship, which has tons of shields all around, you are basically forcing it to give up its most powerful defensive traits.  XI7s already completely with Redirects, but now you're pushing in 1 extra damage every time because he can only choose to Evade.  This is a free one damage.  Against CR90s, the effect is even more extreme because it doesn't have as many shields as the MC30c.  The effect on the Raider is more devastating because now, if the target chooses to Brace, he might have to eat that double-hit red dice without the Evade.

Example #3 - Shooting at Demolisher, or Assault Frigate MKII.
This example is the most painful, because typically, the GSD or MKII need all of their tokens to evade big damage.  If you roll big on any of these guys, expect them to take some absolutely horrendous damage.  While Redir is the weakest here, not being able to shake off hits with an Evade on top of Brace will be extremely deadly to these kind of ships.  This means that the Brace itself, will be weakened even if it's already used.

So why XI7s still on this ship after Mon Karren?  Because it gives you power over Redirects.  In the first example I gave with the ISD-II, if you didn't have XI7s, instead of pushing 8 damage in round #2 of shooting, you would have only pushed 5 because 3 of them would have been Redirected on the side.  The effects are even worse on the Home One because they have even more shields than the ISD.  Not just that, but in Round #3, instead of killing your target, they will repeat the same process even after IO so you willy be ale to push damage depending on how many shields they have left on the side.  The results vs. the MC30c would be equally as infuriating because of their ability to just throw the majority of your damage away.

It's a trap!  Don't do it!

Therefore, the first Turbolaser upgrade you should have on your ship is the XI7s, no question.  When it comes to the second TL upgrade, I will argue that you don't really need it, but if you really want to push damage, I would take the XX-9s.  In the first example that I gave about shooting the ISD-II, you can clearly see that even though you pushed 8 damage through the second round of shooting, he can still Contain.  Now, let's say you get to ignore the Contain because you have XX-9s, what does this mean?  It means the possibility of spilling in more damage within your limited lifespan.  I say this with all due respect to the ship because I see it first and foremost as a Battlecruiser more than a true Battleship.  It moves fast, shoots hard, but is fragile as all hell without a Defensive Retrofit and piss-poor protection from the side.  In World of Warship terms, this might as well be a Hindenburg when looking at it from the side.  While some people are really hard about the Quad Turbolaser Turrets because they're the new hotness, don't be fooled:  They're a 10-point redundant upgrade that can be ECM'd and have a specific condition in where you have to roll a red accuracy.  GTFO, I would rather take XX-9s to push through Contains any day of the week; especially when the Interdictor has two of them.

Lastly, this brings me to the last point that I want to make about the ship:  It's really frail.  When you have no ECM, you are at the mercy of accuracy dice and that can mean a ton of damage coming your way.  When you look at the double Brace, some may find this to be really good.  In a way, it is, because you have redundant systems to use against bigger targets that shoot at you, but let me tell you right now that that is not your biggest concern.  The biggest threat to the Liberty will be fast movers with reliable damage like TRC90s, and squadrons.  Bombers will seriously mess your shit up because you don't have the Redirs or shields on the sides of your ship to mitigate that kind of damage.  If you see bombers on the table, your best course of action is to fly in there face first and blow everything out of the water because your days are truly numbered.  Fast-moving TRC90s will also cause a serious problem to this ship because they will be putting damage into the hull super quick.  I really think the 2 shields on the side and the sole Redirect will be the death of the ship in the Wave 4 meta, but I'm determined to give it quite a few games on the table before I call it quits.

So how should you use this ship?  Well, I intend on using like as a capital ship flanker.  Use Madine as your commander and try this ship out with Engine Techs and/or the max damage package with Mon Karren title, XI7s and XX-9s.  Engine Techs will make sure the ship points face-first at the opponent while being fast enough to one-shot and chase down even the most annoying TRC-wielding ships on the table.  Madine will allow the ship to turn on a dime when you want it to, and if you position well enough, you might be able to seriously mess some shit up while pointing your 5-shield face at them.  The key to survive in this case would be to make sure that the only sources doing damage to you will be from the front.

Armada: Dealing damage vs. shutting down defenses

Pew pew or boom boom?

Taken from my reply to this thread here.

ceejlekabeejle writes:
The question posed isn't "are upgrades that target defence tokens good?", because, as you so perceptively pointed out, that's a bit of a no brainer.

The debate is whether focusing on negating defence tokens is a more successful means to achieve victory than simply maximising damage output.

Do you have something to contribute on that?

My response:
There's two trains of thought here that I want to entertain and in some form, exercise:

The first form is simply: Death by a thousand cuts.  You do a lot of small, minimal damage that adds up over time because your opponent doesn't have any defense tokens worth spending.  When he does spend, he spends for minimal investment.  No one likes to spend a Brace token on say, two damage from a bomber, and the same can be said with just about everything.  Defense tokens, and especially Brace, are the most coveted defense mechanisms that ships have in order for them to sustain themselves on the battlefield.  Shields, hull, the only thing those numbers represent is how much damage a ship can soak before it's gone, and therefore useless to the battle.  This game, like X-Wing, has a slippery slope mechanic when it comes to dealing and applying damage.  Once you start bleeding ships, your damage also decreases and thus, it becomes an expotentially more difficult time to finish the battle in your favor.  Going back to the death by a thousand cuts, these are lists like swarm lists, all bomber lists and lists that predominately pick at you until you commit your defenses.

The second form is simply:  The killing blow.  You throw such a huge amount of dice that your opponent either Braces or dies (to that extent).  This is your ISD-IIs, AckbarBBs and other big dice throws where their version of damage negation normally comes in the way of XI7s to push hull damage, and Intel Officer to make sure that Brace isn't there to save you next round.  In this sense, there is a much greater reliance that your opponent doesn't have the means to defend against your attack, vs. having to feed that damage over time.  That's exactly what you should compare it to; a nuke vs. a DoT (Damage over Time), or a frog that gets slowly boiled to death vs. getting thrown in lava.  In 40K terms, this is pretty much the Tau's battle strategies of Kauyon vs. Mont'ka.

What do I prefer?  I prefer both, in the same list.  Let me entertain why:  When you have a list that combines both of these elements, big ship/little ships, you start feeding your opponent more choices to overload the amount of strategic decisions he has coming into the battle.  In a list where you pick at your opponent to death with swarms, your opponent has a mental idea of how much damage he should expect per die throw.  The choices are more simple that way.  Same can be said about purely big ship lists where you throw buckets of die, so they know when to be conservative and when to spend defense tokens.  When you mix big ships and little ships, you start messing with how they spend their tokens:  Players tend to let in more damage from the smaller vessels because they're expecting to save themselves from the bigger ship that's going to fire.  Maybe first, maybe second, they never know as long as you control initiative.  Thus turns into a battle of mind games where they have to decide whether or not to bleed to death, or having to deal with a baseball bat to the face.  For example, activating a big ship first vs. smaller one will more than likely draw out Brace.  If it's gone, good, if it's not, your opponent is much less likely to burn the token when your smaller ships fire; thus allowing you to squeeze in more damage.  Dice, also plays a huge factor in this, as the larger pools of dice you throw the spikier the damage can be.  This means that your opponents also can't predict the outcome of the throw as easily as say.. throwing blues with SW-7s.  Inconsistent damage be a good thing, because this means that damage can be average, or swing in a way that's unanticipated.  Sometimes this works in your favor because more attacks will be let through because they're saving for a more dramatic effect that never comes.

In conclusion, I like mixing both combat ideologies when constructing a list.  This is why I like the fleet I'm currently using with Ackbar, one of the reasons why I like MC30/TRC90 lists (can chip, can rock face), and why I like ISD-II 3-ship lists with the Interdictor.  If you look at some other lists like ISD + GSD + Fireball  for example, they run similar concepts, but with a minor twist:  You sneak in damage where you can get it with squadrons, and then choose whether or not to punk someone in the face.  Do your opponents spend their tokens or let in free damage?  Or save them for something that can punch you really hard in the face.

When it comes to these kind of games:  The more you force your opponent to think, the more you mistakes he can possibly make.  The more mistakes he makes, the more you can capitalize on punishing them.

Armada: Liberty Swarm

Taking the minnows to school!

Here's a new list idea that I've been thinking about:  It starts with Madine and ends with Mon Karren and 3x TRC90s.  I don't have that much room for squadrons because of all this speed, maneuverability and sure damage, but the I still have Dash + 2x YTs to give me a little more automation so I can focus on the things that matter:  That is punching other ships in the face while my big fat Whale shark moves across the field at breakneck pace.

I'm not entirely sold on Engine Techs on the MC80 Liberty yet, but the idea of a 3-sheep large ship with Engine Techs is unreal.  The amount of map coverage is just insane.  Not to mention with Madine you can do more than a 90 degree turn and shoot your opponents from the back.  Having Engine Techs on the MC80 Liberty basically means you can have a capital ship flanker, something that is unheard of at this point.  You can move across a very large area of ground, and then turn sharply into the action while blasting away as you see fit.  This kind of command compression allows the Mon Karren to do some serious work, especially when you fit it out with something like XX-9s to really capitalize on its damage.

The list looks something like this:

Updated - 8/12/16 - Now trying the XX-9s since I think speed-3 might be enough to drop Engine Techs.

LIBERTY SWARM
Author: HERO
Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 382/400
Commander: General Madine

Assault Objective: Most Wanted
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Superior Positions

[ flagship ] MC80 Battle Cruiser (103 points)
-  General Madine  ( 30  points)
-  Mon Karren  ( 8  points)
-  Intel Officer  ( 7  points)
-  Gunnery Team  ( 7  points)
-  Medical Team  ( 1  points)
-  XI7 Turbolasers  ( 6  points)
-  XX-9 Turbolasers  ( 5  points)
-  Leading Shots  ( 4  points)
= 171 total ship cost

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
-  Jaina's Light  ( 2  points)
-  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points)
= 53 total ship cost

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
-  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points)
= 51 total ship cost

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
-  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points)
= 51 total ship cost

1 Dash Rendar ( 24 points)
2 YT-2400s ( 32 points)

I currently have Madine set up on the Mon Karren, but if you're feeling like you want to run, you can easily put Madine on the Jaina's Light.  That ship makes a great get-away little bugger while you can feel a little better letting the Mon Karren die in battle where she belongs.  The 3x TRC90s puts down an enormous amount of damage since the extra yaws will allow all the ships to take better advantage of double-arcs from more comfortable firing positions.

Overall, you have 4 ship activations, 5 drops and a good amount of balance between speed, firepower and precision-based play.  This is definitely one of the first lists I'm going to try once I get the Liberty in my hands.  I've already demo'd it on Vassal once and I feel like this is going to be a really strong list in the right hands.  Especially that Mon Karren title.. freaking unreal man.

Armada: The gauntlet has been thrown!

Time to pew pew!

Check this out!

The funniest thing about all this is that no matter who wins the grudge match, this is great for the community overall.  There's a lot of coverage, a lot of input, a lot of people being hyped about the game. and it's going to be great fun.  Other fellow bloggers want to get involved and cover the event, and this is one of the coolest things I've ever seen in an online community.  Shit, I think I might even run the game on my Twitch channel just so I can record it in real time and talk about the game and my thought process as I'm playing it.

Here is his list:
Dodonna the Oppressor wave 4   
Author: Lyraeus

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 386/400
Commander: General Dodonna

Assault Objective: ???
Defense Objective: ???
Navigation Objective: ???

MC30c Scout Frigate (69 points)
-  Admonition  ( 8  points)
-  Intel Officer  ( 7  points)
-  Ordnance Experts  ( 4  points)
-  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points)
-  Assault Proton Torpedoes  ( 5  points)
= 100 total ship cost

MC30c Scout Frigate (69 points)
-  Intel Officer  ( 7  points)
-  Ordnance Experts  ( 4  points)
-  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points)
-  Assault Proton Torpedoes  ( 5  points)
= 92 total ship cost

[ flagship ] CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
-  General Dodonna  ( 20  points)
-  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points)
= 71 total ship cost

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
-  Intel Officer  ( 7  points)
-  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points)
= 58 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
-  Bright Hope  ( 2  points)
-  Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams  ( 6  points)
-  Slicer Tools  ( 7  points)
= 33 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
-  Quantum Storm  ( 1  points)
-  Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams  ( 6  points)
-  Slicer Tools  ( 7  points)
= 32 total ship cost


Here is my list:
ACKBAR THE DEPRESSOR
Author: HERO

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 382/400
Commander: Admiral Ackbar

Assault Objective: ???
Defense Objective: ???
Navigation Objective: ???

[ flagship ] MC80 Command Cruiser (106 points)
-  Admiral Ackbar  ( 38  points)
-  Home One  ( 7  points)
-  Intel Officer  ( 7  points)
-  Engine Techs  ( 8  points)
-  Electronic Countermeasures  ( 7  points)
-  X17 Turbolasers  ( 6  points)
-  Leading Shots  ( 4  points)
= 183 total ship cost

Assault Frigate Mark II B (72 points)
-  Gunnery Team  ( 7  points)
-  Electronic Countermeasures  ( 7  points)
-  X17 Turbolasers  ( 6  points)
= 92 total ship cost

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
-  Jaina's Light  ( 2  points)
-  Turbolaser Reroute Circuits  ( 7  points)
= 53 total ship cost

2 YT-2400s ( 32 points)
2 A-Wing Squadrons ( 22 points)


Alright folks, take your bets.  Here is what the pre-match forumites have to say!  Thanks Madaghmire for the write-up.  Personally, I'm really looking forward to playing this and repping MC80 players everywhere.  I even prepared a soundboard to use on gameday.

I had reserved a write up space higher but so much has come down so I'll leave it here;

Matchup of the Moment: Dodonna the Oppressor Vs. Big Fish
The Portland Pulverizer takes on the So-Cal Strangler in alliterative anarchy! Help, Help I’m being Oppressed takes on a film I did not see in theatres! Come see the violence inherent in the system!

I don’t want to talk much about the lists themselves, because the designers of both have already gone on to great lengths about what each list is designed to do. Or at least Hero has on his blog. I’m not sure if Lyr has ever even mentioned his list. Instead, I’m going to focus on the matchup.

What’s working for Lyraeus and his top secret list;

- Activations! At a commanding 6 activations, Lyr has the potential to really set the tempo of the match.
- Deployments: Lyr has only a slight edge at 6 deployments to 5, but it means he can hold his big hitters in reserve until he sees how Hero wants to set up. This becomes especially true if Hero decides to play first, as then Lyr would have 2 deployments where he has a complete picture of Hero’s deployment.
- If Hero’s list were a cake, it would be Fudgey the Whale, and DtO is extremely well suited to go whaling. Lots of guaranteed damage and Intel Officer means Hero will have to manage his use of defense tokens extremely well. Additionally, Dodonna helps makes sure that any APT crits that come up come up nasty, and the wrong one could be disastrous.
- Slicer Tools: Hero has no command dial manipulation, but he does take Engine Techs on his MC80 to give it that extra bit of speed and maneuverability. He’ll have at least one, possibly two turns of nav to use as a buffer, but assuming he has a token banked he will only be able to count on that one token’s worth of Engine Tech use. Alternatively, if Lyr manages to put say, a Depowered Armament on Ole Fudgey, he could slice away any hope of repair. (Slice away? Get it? Cuz Fudgey is a cake! My daughter hates me.)
- Sending waves and waves of his own men until the kill bots meet their quota- It’s silly but it’s true, a little bitty transport can block a big ole Star Cruiser. Positioning is key.

Hero’s Never Die! And here’s why;

- Initiative! I think we all agree that initiative is good to have. Sun Tzu said so, and who am I to argue with Sunny T? It’s particularly good in this case, because DtO really, really wants to go first. And Hero can completely take that away. Alternatively, if he just feels super great about his objectives then he can force Lyr to pick from them. The important thing is that it’s his call.
- Squadrons: Hero has a couple! I guess. He doesn’t have any bombers, but he has 4 very fast black dice that don’t much of anything to fear on the other side of the board. The Yt’s, in particular, will be able to start buzzing around quickly. I predict he gets 4-5 attacks with the YT’s and 2-3 from the A’s. Which can be a nice bump in damage if he’s able to apply it in the right spot.
- XI7’s- Oh man, this card is basically a giant foam middle finger to MC30’s. Also not fun for CR90’s.
- Home One- While not terribly effective against the redundant defense tokens of the MC30’s, it does a great job of mitigating blank rolls from the AFMK2, and allows both the AFMK2 and CR90 to slap down those pesky slicer tool laden transports without fear of scatter.
- Phylon Slacker Beams- Normally a lovely add, the points Lyr invested on tractor transports are practically dead weight in this one, as only the TRC90 is a viable target. They could still work out great and lock Jaina’s Light down in the dark might or force Hero to spam a nav or two he would rather have been Conc Fire, but I think that they are going to wind up seeing little action in this one.
- One Shot Popping- Ackbar and Xi7’s mean that Lyr could lose any ship in a single blow from Fudgey the Unsatiable. The AFMK2 is also a threat to one shot a corvette, although the dice would have to be hot.


So who wins? We all do, because anytime you get a little hype behind a match between two good players like this, it’s fun for everyone. But I guess I should keep It to the competitors;

Lyr wins if- He can leverage his activation advantage and damage modifiers to take Home One or the AFMK out early without significant losses.

Hero wins if- He can avoid taking massive MC30 broadsides in his front arc.

Good luck to both players, hope everyone enjoyed the write up!