Im creating this thread to discuss tactics and strategies for CR90 swarm lists.

I've been playing 6 CR90s in various configurations but I only get to play one or two games a week max so I've been running into some issues that Im trying to figure out.

1. When I fly in formation It often works out that I end up obstructing my own attacks. I try hard to avoid it but it always ends up happening eventually. Whats the best way to keep everyone in range while not blocking your own shots.
2. What missions would you pick for a CR90 swarm? And should bidding for initiative be a priority over upgrades?
3. Ive found in a majority of my games that ramming as been used a lot. I would sometimes lock up a VSD in its front arc and then continuously ram it from all directions. Is this a good idea or is there a better way to utilize the fleet?

Just a few thoughts and questions to get us rolling. Thanks for the input!!

1. Understand that what me be the best move for ship one may not be the best move for a fleet, then look at the bigger picture. For Example: Will leaving ship one right in front of the VSD for a turn be the right thing? In some regards it may be if those 1-2 extra shots could be expected to kill the VSD, you may then look at ship one and wish him well. On other occassions getting the little ship out of the front arc of a VSD may be the way go to. Speeding up or slowing down via a stored Navigation Token may also help.

2. I think there are times you want to take second player, other times not. If your opponent only has a few ships then going second can leave you in a good place at times. When you have twice the number of ships as your opponent would in my thoughts qualify as a good time to go second.

As for the missions think about:

Assault: Opening Salvo 2 black dice extra per ship is an enourmous extra damage potential. Most wanted allows you to add an extra dice when attacking your target ship.

Defense: Fire Lanes should see you start with a few VP's in the bag. Fleet ambush will remove the Squadrons taking a deployment slot and allow you to see where your targets are.

Navigation: Superior positions, should you get rear shots, how could you not get rear shots? Dangerous Territory would be a mission to mix things up with, as second player your ships can overlap and obsticle and not be damaged by it. This will help as you don't have to worry about maneuvering out of the way.

3. This one is highly situational. Moving a ship and not take a ram may be better in some cases. In other instances staying put will cause your opponent no end of grief.

1) Jaina's Light also comes in very handy. I place it on my flagship (a Corv-A) which allows me to use the rest of my ships as a screen for it while not obstructing it's own shots. Also - Mon Mothma is a MUST for this fleet!!! For my 300 pt fleet, I use two As and three Bs, with the Bs in the lead. When I do sweep in for an attack, I always strike with the Bs first so that they can then clear out from in front of my As, thus opening up their lines of sight. I also do something that gets questioned a lot until people see my fleet in action, I put Nav Teams on all my corvettes. First round, each gets loaded with a Nav Token. Which has saved me many times from accidental collisions between my ships since I can use the token for an additional click on the maneuver tool. I also take Tycho and an A-Wing squadron in order to occupy opposing fighters just long enough to negate them for a few turns.

2) I always try to go first. This has saved me several times since I can fire and move a ship that is in a 'not very safe' spot before it can get unloaded on by my opponent. Especially if you end up having to 'cross the T'. Personally, I would stay away from Fire Lanes. I played that in a tournament recently and lost miserably thanks to 2 VSDs moving up and camping near two objective tokens. Even though I was able to kill my opponent's flagship (a VSD with Motti) it wasn't soon enough before he had racked up a serious number of victory tokens. Opening Salvo works good. Superior Positions has worked well for me, even though as first player I set up first.

3) I have yet to use ramming as a tactic, or even really needed to either. You have the means and ability to eliminate a VSD in one round without ramming if your fleet is used properly.

2) For the 'Vette swarm I've gotten a lot of mileage out of Opening Salvo, no matter if I'm first or second. The extra dice are nice, but the ability to get half points from a VSD just from having a damage card on it means you don't necessarily need to kill those giant blocks of hull, just burn your initials into them.

I have to question a player opting to allow a Corvette Swarm to play Openning Salvo as the second player.

Against a 6 ship build you are giving them the equivalent of two front arc VSD shots worth of extra dice. One of the other objectives available for you to pick from has to be better then that situation.

Mon Mothma's evade ability and the fact that CR90s have 2 evade tokens, means they can pretty much cancel the opening salvo bonus, even the most wanted bonus. Players get too focusd on the fact they can get 2 black die and forget that the opponent can negate them

I found that spacing them about 2 distance apart to start is enough to keep them running into each other. Even starting them out at a 45 degree angle can help, because once they "turn to flank, they will be in a line abrest formation.

Opening Salvo is the best choice (even if you are first player), but a player would be committing suicide if he choose that allowing a corvette swarm to get 2 extra dice for each ship. That is why most wanted might be better, because your opponent might actually PICK that one, and you have something to focus on you get an extra die, and also double points, which at the moment your 39 point naked CR90B versus at least 56 points (naked GSDI) means even if both objective ships are blown up, you are still ahead in the VPs

Dangerous territory is the obvious navigation (blue) objective. Especially with Jiana's light, it is a good one if you are 2nd or first.

I think Firelanes is the other choice. FOrces the opponent to come to you, or pick one of the ones above. You should be able to get 90 points, and even form a CR90 "Wall" that would prevent the opponent from getting close.

If i was facing a Cr90 swarm, and with the above choices I think I would choose dangerous territory as the lesser of 3 evils. at worst you only give your opponnet a 45 point advantage, but also forces them to come towards you. IMHO the biggest threat to CR90 Swarm, is 3 VSDs who sit in the corner and wait for you to come to them, and deny a flank attack. or a bomber squadron heavy list.

THe objectives that you DONT want to play as first player are: Precision strike, superior positions, hyperspace assault, and contested outpost

So, I would bid around 8-9 but it depends on your group you play with. CR90 swarm is more strategic, thus I would want to bid a modest amount and get to choose what benefits me the most

1) Jaina's Light also comes in very handy. I place it on my flagship (a Corv-A) which allows me to use the rest of my ships as a screen for it while not obstructing it's own shots. Also - Mon Mothma is a MUST for this fleet!!! For my 300 pt fleet, I use two As and three Bs, with the Bs in the lead. When I do sweep in for an attack, I always strike with the Bs first so that they can then clear out from in front of my As, thus opening up their lines of sight. I also do something that gets questioned a lot until people see my fleet in action, I put Nav Teams on all my corvettes. First round, each gets loaded with a Nav Token. Which has saved me many times from accidental collisions between my ships since I can use the token for an additional click on the maneuver tool. I also take Tycho and an A-Wing squadron in order to occupy opposing fighters just long enough to negate them for a few turns.

2) I always try to go first. This has saved me several times since I can fire and move a ship that is in a 'not very safe' spot before it can get unloaded on by my opponent. Especially if you end up having to 'cross the T'. Personally, I would stay away from Fire Lanes. I played that in a tournament recently and lost miserably thanks to 2 VSDs moving up and camping near two objective tokens. Even though I was able to kill my opponent's flagship (a VSD with Motti) it wasn't soon enough before he had racked up a serious number of victory tokens. Opening Salvo works good. Superior Positions has worked well for me, even though as first player I set up first.

3) I have yet to use ramming as a tactic, or even really needed to either. You have the means and ability to eliminate a VSD in one round without ramming if your fleet is used properly.

That was me, by the sounds of it.

I'll agree that I don't think Fire Lanes is a great choice for a swarm build. Sure, it pins down where they go, but if you want those points then it limits you, too.

In this case, there was no pressure on me to make my VSDs extremely useful outside of collecting 30 points per turn. I killed a couple corvettes, but was able to simply focus on the victory points.

I've never played against a swarm build before this, and Fire Lanes really helped me to continue to not really play against his build all that much.

Obviously my strategy really doesn't work well with other builds necessarily, but it's something to keep in mind, that giving your opponent a way to score points outside of the swarm itself.

Hmmmm this tactics thread will work great in a MC30 swarm. . .

Hmmmm this tactics thread will work great in a MC30 swarm. . .

from what we gathered you wont get much of a swarm of them, they sound pretty pricey

They can't be more than a Assault Frigate Mark IIB. With 4 hull and no brace they would be worthless at more than that. I am pretty sure they should not be more than 65 points. 70 at the top end but it is unlikely. With CR90 hull and VSD shields. . . Yea no more than 70 points

Hmmmm this tactics thread will work great in a MC30 swarm. . .

May for supporting a corvette swarm. One of the pros of the swarm is that they have a command of 1. It looks like the MC30 has a command of 2, which will in one way make the MC30s not as responsive compared to the corvettes.

That is true but that also means they can save an engineering token and a navigation token. This means that they can adjust shields at will or reinforce a side. While being able to slow down if needed.

They don't have access to Nav teams or engine techs it looks like which will suck but it will be ok.

As a Corvette swarm support I think it is the other way around. I think the CR90's support the MC30's. This is just me however.

They can't be more than a Assault Frigate Mark IIB. With 4 hull and no brace they would be worthless at more than that. I am pretty sure they should not be more than 65 points. 70 at the top end but it is unlikely. With CR90 hull and VSD shields. . . Yea no more than 70 points

Even then, there's a huge difference between that amount of points and a CR90. We're talking Gladiator or more points there, so i dont think "swarm" is really going to apply. Maybe 4 max at 300 points....more like 3 with any upgrades.

We are talking about 1.5 times the cost with 1.5 times that firepower, 4 extra shields, better token capacity, and an ability to generate fear simply because the Gladiator has done so well even without the Demolisher upgrade. Oh and a second redirect. Always good right.

Now I am not saying your wrong, this is just my point of my view on this. One could likely run 6 of these in a list.

Here is what I think the cheaper version of the MC30 will cost. I used the CR90 because it would allow us to loot at them both and see what could they be upgraded to. Now I expect to be a few mounts off and honestly will be surprised if the more expensive MC30 is more than one of these CR90's.

+++ Faux MC30's (335pts) +++

++ Rebel Alliance (Standard) (335pts) ++

+ CR90 Corvette (335pts) +

Estimated cost for MC30 - CR90 Corvette A (67pts) [Advanced Projectors (6pts), Enhanced Armament (10pts), Intel Officer (7pts)]

Estimated cost for MC30 - CR90 Corvette A (67pts) [Advanced Projectors (6pts), Enhanced Armament (10pts), Intel Officer (7pts)]

Estimated cost for MC30 - CR90 Corvette A (67pts) [Advanced Projectors (6pts), Enhanced Armament (10pts), Intel Officer (7pts)]

Estimated cost for MC30 - CR90 Corvette A (67pts) [Advanced Projectors (6pts), Enhanced Armament (10pts), Intel Officer (7pts)]

Estimated cost for MC30 - CR90 Corvette A (67pts) [Advanced Projectors (6pts), Enhanced Armament (10pts), Intel Officer (7pts)]

As the list above shows, each MC30 could take advanced projectors so as to be safe from the XI7's (which I think will increase in popularity exponentially)

My gut feel is that you are underestimating their points somewhat. Compared to a Gladiator it's faster, has comparable firepower, better shields, more defence tokens but less hull. I think it's very unlikely that they will be much cheaper than Gladiators...in fact I think there'd be a decent case for them costing slightly more.

Ultimately though, we'll have to wait and see!

Well the Gladiator 2 costs 62 points so if I think it is going to be 67 points and at most 70 points then I can't be too far off the mark right?

It has better shields but shields today are not that strong since XI7 Turbolasers came into play. An Assault Frigate or Victory can destroy small ships with EASE. What I think makes these ships cost so much is that Brace token. To me, it is the strongest token so far (but the ISD looks like it is getting the XI7's equivalent to counter Braces to a degree)

This is just my opinion. At 67 points it is expensive but still cheaper than a Victory or a Space Whale.

Oh, 67 base....sorry thats fine. Your list confused me as it doesnt seem to factor in the upgrade costs,and says 335 for 5 of them.

At 67 base + those upgrades, its actually 450pts for the 5, thats much more reasonable!

No the upgrades are to show what an equivalent costing CR90 would look like and to use as a comparison between the base MC30 and these upgraded CR90's

Gotcha. Then yeah.....67ish seems pretty reasonable to me

Hmmmm this tactics thread will work great in a MC30 swarm. . .

May for supporting a corvette swarm. One of the pros of the swarm is that they have a command of 1. It looks like the MC30 has a command of 2, which will in one way make the MC30s not as responsive compared to the corvettes.

This. I don't understand this. This seems literally the opposite of how I understand the game. Isn't a ship with 1 activation extremely limited in that it can only move and fire once? One of the ISD cards is supposed to be a title that reduces its number of activations from 3 to 2. HOW IS THAT GOOD?!?

On the topic of Rebel Fleet Spam objectives:

1. Let us assume if you take Opening Salvo, your opponent will not pick it.
2. Therefore, if you take it, you can be assured your opponent will take one of the other two objectives.
3. Let us assume if you don't take Opening Salvo, you get Most Wanted instead.

So then the answer is this: you are either picking between two objectives with 50% probability, or 3 with 33% probability. Which is better or worse? It comes down to this: do you think your yellow and blue objectives are better for you or worse for your than Most Wanted? If they are both better, you take Opening Salvo, always, to force an opponent to pick one of them. If you think they are worse, you don't take Opening Salvo and hope your opponent might pick Most Wanted. If you are indifferent, or you think one of the yellow/blue is better or one of the yellow/blue is worse, you take Opening Salvo, because your expected value is the same with the remainder and your opponent might be foolish enough to occasionally pick Opening Salvo.

Or, in short, I always take Opening Salvo for my swarm lists. My other two choices are usually Superior Positions and Fleet Ambush.

Hmmmm this tactics thread will work great in a MC30 swarm. . .

May for supporting a corvette swarm. One of the pros of the swarm is that they have a command of 1. It looks like the MC30 has a command of 2, which will in one way make the MC30s not as responsive compared to the corvettes.

This. I don't understand this. This seems literally the opposite of how I understand the game. Isn't a ship with 1 activation extremely limited in that it can only move and fire once? One of the ISD cards is supposed to be a title that reduces its number of activations from 3 to 2. HOW IS THAT GOOD?!?

I think you are understanding a fundamental part of the game quite wrongly.

"Command" has absolutely nothing to do with activations. Command just shows how large your Command stack is...you still only reveal the top 1 per turn, and still only activate a ship once per turn. Command 1, 2 or 3 still only gets to shoot (from up to 2 arcs) and then move...no further activations.

Hmmmm this tactics thread will work great in a MC30 swarm. . .

May for supporting a corvette swarm. One of the pros of the swarm is that they have a command of 1. It looks like the MC30 has a command of 2, which will in one way make the MC30s not as responsive compared to the corvettes.

This. I don't understand this. This seems literally the opposite of how I understand the game. Isn't a ship with 1 activation extremely limited in that it can only move and fire once? One of the ISD cards is supposed to be a title that reduces its number of activations from 3 to 2. HOW IS THAT GOOD?!?

Command is not activations. All ships activate once per turn. Command is how many turns worth of dials you need to have planned in advance.