So i'm looking at starting star wars armada and just wanting some advice on a list for rebels, the two below are some of my ideas. I don't want to really use any fighters, any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Rebels 1 - 296

Nebulon-B Escort Frigate - 77

- General Dodonna

Nebulon-B Support Refit - 51

Nebulon-B Support Refit - 51

CR90 Corellian Corvette B - 39

CR90 Corellian Corvette B - 39

CR90 Corellian Corvette B - 39

Rebels 2 - 298

CR90a Corellian Corvette - 64

- General Dodonna

CR90 Corellian Corvette B - 39

CR90 Corellian Corvette B - 39

CR90 Corellian Corvette B - 39

CR90 Corellian Corvette B - 39

CR90 Corellian Corvette B - 39

CR90 Corellian Corvette B - 39

I hope you're borrowing pieces, because I sure wouldn't want to buy all those coresets

also, you can drop the single escort down to a support refit. A single neb isn't going to be reliably killing ties even through 3 rounds of fire, so you might as well stick to the plan and go H.A.M on red dice.

Redemption could be an idea, though

If you're looking to avoid using squadrons, I would encourage you to include more than the one escort frigate. The escort has 2 anti-squadron dice to the cr90's 1.

Without squadrons to screen your ships or run interference, dedicated bombers will make things difficult, particularly the tie bomber. Having multiple escort frigates means you have many more dice to throw at squadrons making attack runs on your ships.

As an alternative, a pair of a-wings could also be effective at mitigating enemy bombers.

As long as you have a plan to deal with/avoid/neutralize opposing squadrons, you should be ok.

So something like this?

Rebels - 298

Nebulon-B Escort Frigate - 77

- General Dodonna

Nebulon-B Escort Frigate - 65

- Redemption

CR90 Corvette B - 39

CR90 Corvette B - 39

CR90 Corvette B - 39

CR90 Corvette B - 39

No I'm not going to buy any more then 2 core sets haha

Wouldn’t the plan against squadrons with a list like this be throw so much damage at the enemy capitals that they can’t afford to use multiple squadron commands? With CR90’s you can keep moving fast enough that it will be pretty hard to get consecutive attacks with multiple bombers without squadron commands.

Having said that if an opponent has a couple of good squadron support ships and is careful to keep their bombers near both it might be a serious problem. Cant wait to see some battle reports where these types of list collide.

If people run support squadrons for their bombers then taking one or two friendly squadrons is just going to give the enemy fighters a target. I am interested to see if people will try all their squadrons as bombers (I’m certainly going to give it a go).

Was actually thinking of an all corvette list but I was looking at the few downsides.

1) Quite a small range band to ensure you don't get crapped on by black die VSDs or gladiators. A single Gladiator with demolisher and expanded launchers will make your life a living hell. Also, you'd be sitting ducks for the opening long range engagement of the fight. Neb-Bs would be of some use here while you annoy and flank the opponent with the remaining corvettes.

2) If you do plan to run all corvettes, I'd give Garm a try over dodonna just so you can stack movement tokens or conc. fire tokens. If you can afford engine techs, it would greatly benefit the corvettes in getting out of the way. A 4 + 1 moving corvette is wayy to fast for this game.

3) The neb-B should be the salvation if you plan to take a title. You'd want the neb-B to be the main aggressor in the list so your corvettes won't be prioritised and I think the salvation gives it the punch it needs to not be ignored.

4) No squadron is risky but I'd recommend at least an A-wing squadron or 2 to prevent free kills. An imperial or rebel squadron 3 ship with bombers can easily put down 3 black/red dice at a single point of your ship while it's shooting you.

5) Dodonna's pride is definitely a requirement here since it gives the best bang for the buck. 2 faceup damage cards per turn if you get 2 arcs within range will definitely do much more than a stock corvette in the opening salvos.

6) I'm not sure how the turn order will play out since you will be shooting about 4 ships (if you run 6) in a reactive pattern. This is assuming that most armies will contain 2 capitals which means that 4 of your ships may be out of position once the opponent's ship moves. However, if you are not playing a fast moving ship, the path should be easy to predict.

With all being said, I've been wanting to post a list like below for discussion.

Neb b support

Garm

A wing squadron

Neb b support

salvation

A wing squadron

Corvette B

Dodonna's pride

Engine tech

Corvette A

Corvette A

Total 297 pts

You've got 2 A wing squadrons to prevent bomber lists from getting free hits on the Nebs toothpick side armour, 3 fast movers with dodonna's engine tech to run a whopping 4 + 1 in turn 1. Unless I read that wrong and you can do a 4 + (4-1) maneuver in a turn. Basically fly past the opponent with dodonna and force the opponent to turn or get 2 face up's per turn while your nebs pound the front. Corvette As are there to provide a little more room for shooting but you can use them straight up if you prefer and downgrade them to Corvette Bs.

I was thinking of a suicide list like this.

Corvette A

Dodonna

Corvette A

Corvette A

Corvette A

Corvette A

Jaina's light

Corvette b

Dodonna's pride

E-countermeasures

total 294

What you want is opening salvos in either your deck or your opponents. This is purely so you get +2 red dice for each corvette A and +1 for concentrate firepower giving a total of 5 red dice per corvette for the first time you shoot from the front arc which would be hilarious. Corvette B to mop anything that is still alive.

Meaples i my self would run your two lists as:

These changes would givw your lists more anti bomber support:

Rebels - 295

Nebulon-B Escort Frigate - 82

- Garm Bel Iblis

Nebulon-B Support Refit - 58

- Salvation

CR90 Corvette B - 45

- Dodonna's Pride

CR90 Corvette A - 44

CR90 Corvette A - 44

A Wing Squadron - 11

A Wing Squadron - 11

Rebels - 296

CR90 Corvette A - 64

- General Dodonna

CR90 Corvette A - 44

CR90 Corvette A - 44

CR90 Corvette A - 44

CR90 Corvette A - 44

CR90 Corvette B - 45

- Dodonna's Pride

A Wing Squadron - 11

How about ALL the Nebulon-B's, lined up in the oldstyle infantry formations of lines, utilizing their strong forward shields and attack, with gunnery team or something.

And that would obstruct any attacks to their sides!

5 Nebs is 15 shields, 15 red dice, and 25 hull...

The only problem i see is that with only 5 ships you leave your self open to the imperial equivalent lists:

Imperials - 296

Victory I-class Star Destroyer - 99

- Admiral Screed

Victory I-class Star Destroyer - 85

- Dominator

Gladiator I-class Star Destroyer - 56

Gladiator I-class Star Destroyer - 56

Imperials - 295

Victory I-class Star Destroyer - 99

- Admiral Screed

Victory I-class Star Destroyer - 85

- Dominator

Victory I-class Star Destroyer - 73

Tie Interceptor Squadron - 11

Tie Bomber Squadron - 9

Tie Bomber Squadron - 9

Tie Bomber Squadron - 9

These lists all depend on how effective bombers are against small ships. If I was against this list my ships would be doing nothing but squadron commands. I really hope bombers are effective enough to stop ship spam otherwise they might as well not exist.

Also fear the gunnery team.

How about ALL the Nebulon-B's, lined up in the oldstyle infantry formations of lines, utilizing their strong forward shields and attack, with gunnery team or something.

And that would obstruct any attacks to their sides!

5 Nebs is 15 shields, 15 red dice, and 25 hull...

I think squadron-less skews could still be viable, but I don't believe the Neb is the ship to do it. The Corvette certainly seems more attractive for the role, and will only become more attractive with MM launching in wave 1.

What squadrons do for rebels is provide their close combat superiority option. Star Destroyers (esp gladiators) will wreck your face at close range, but they're far less better equipped to deal with X-wings and such (which only attack at the shortest possible range).

The only Neb I'd straight up reach for anti-capital ship duty would be Salvation, but even then it only works out the front so I'd be inclined to make it an escort (crazy anti-ship out the front, crazy anti-squadron out the very long side)

seems to be the opposite case for the imperials. They're inefficient/straight-up garbage at long range and the speed 4 bombers help alleviate that. The fact that said bombers aren't flexible (unlike Xs, As, and maybe Bs) does clash a bit with the Victory's complete lack of anti-squadron capabilities.

The thing is 65 points of a fleet (while the rest hide in a corner) can deal with 255 points of another fleet. This is why I say a fleet without squadrons is doomed to fail.

well depends on the fleet and squadron, imo

I wouldn't want to be the admiral of a fleet of 3 unescorted victories staring down a gaggle of rebel squadrons. 3 gladiator mk IIs, though...

That is honestly what makes me most excited for this game. I think the huge contrast between the way ships and squadrons work combined with scenarios will help protect this game from the types of cheese builds that seem really prevalent in competitive x-wing.