Hi guys,

Most of my experience/games have been with a small group of friends, and am worried that a lot of my experimental fleets and tactics have had 'false positive' results due to my being a noticeably a better/more natural fleet admiral than the others in that group.

I will be starting to play more games with a local gaming group that has a much larger pool of opponents, that also have much greater experience in the game. What I've seen/heard of this group is that their most dominant admirals tend to fly Imperial fleets. I would like to come up with a couple of Rebel fleets to (hopefully) help tip the balance of that dominance back to more equal terms, and have also been toying with the idea of fielding a corvette swarm list, as it is fairly different than anything else the Rebel players in the group play. Do any of you have any suggestions as to what would make for a viable Corvette swarm list? (If it's not really viable I'd also be willing to adjust my fleet to whatever seems like a fun fleet to fly that has some competitiveness to it)

My Grand fleet consists of:
2 AFs
3 Neb-Bs
5 CR90s
6 of each squadron (with a boat load of extra X-wings)

Thanks for any suggestions or tips, I hope to start fleet building more actively in the near future, once I have a little more experience with handling players who's tastes/lists are more unpredictable. (my current opponents always seem to have the same tendencies when it comes to their tactical table top games, so are relatively easy to predict/account for).

So, I've been experimenting with the Corvettes recently and might have a couple of insights for you. The theory with Rebel ships that I'm working with is that they a doubly specialized :

1) Because they have great drawbacks, but strong strengths

2) Because of their big drawbacks, the upgrades should be limited in order to keep them more effective within their very narrow effectiveness range.

Compared to Imperial ships that are more generalistic that is. Even if each Rebel ship has 2 variants, they don't change the role drastically, but they alter how it is applied.

Here is the breakdown of how I see things with strengths - weaknesses for each Rebel ship :

1) AFMK2 : Excellent tanking capability - Comparatively weak damage for the points size. AFMK2A works better to dive in, AFMK2B works better at longer range.

2) Nebulon-B : Excellent sustained damage and survivability capability at range - Very weak damage and survivability at close range. Escort adds damage with squadrons, Support deals damage with attacks.

3) Corvette : Excellent speed and good burst damage points for points - Very weak damage output over time due to not being able to get stuck using their front arc more than 1-2 turns.

If you want to go for a Corvette swarm, you are going to have to maximize the damage output of each of your Corvettes for 1-2 turns per ship. Because otherwise, you're going to either fly away or get destroyed. And the way to maximize it is through upgrades.

CR90Bs due to limited range seem to want to race in, deal damage and trigger an Ion effect, then race away to another ship or away from the game. CR90As seem to want to start the game in a wide and fast flank, then move in the rear and unleash punishing volleys of red dice in the rear arc of the enemy ships. I'm still working on the CR90A, but after a couple of tryouts it's the most efficient use that I've found. That allows them to get a couple of front arc shots in the rear/side of the enemy ships, and with red dice you want to have more than one round of shooting in order to mitigate the chance of not doing damage.

On the other hand, CR90Bs have more burst damage due to only throwing blue dice with no "miss" face, so they're better to make a single attack count.

If you have 5 Corvettes, here's a list that would be fun to try out !

1) CR90B : Overload Pulse

2) CR90B : Dodonna's Pride, Leading Shots

3) CR90A : Mon Mothma, Tantive IV, Raymus Antilles, H9 Turbolasers

4) CR90A : Engine Techs, H9 Turbolasers

5) CR90A : H9 Turbolasers

Objectives :

Most Wanted

Fleet Ambush

Superior Positions

300 points on the spot

So, the entire idea of this list is to debuff the enemy ships early on with the CR90Bs then finish them off with accurate CR90A firepower in their rear arcs. Most Wanted adds dice to the Corvette making them quite fearsome against the big ship, Fleet Ambush allows you to have a couple enemy ships forward.

The deployment is a bit tricky :

1) Your CR90Bs are going to be the baits. Deploy them at speed 4 (if you're going first) or Speed 3 (if you're going second) facing forward, with the Overload Pulse in front at 3 from your table edge and the Dodonna's Pride right behind at the same speed. Most likely the opponent will deploy at Speed 1 right in front of you.

2) If the enemy has more than 2 ships, you'll want to deploy the Corvette with Engine Techs alone on a flank at distance 3.5-5 from the Bs so that to draw the rest of the enemy fleet there. If not, deploy all the CR90As together at distance 3.5-5 from the Bs (and distance 3 of your table edge). Deploy them at speed 4 if going first, speed 3 if going second.

3) Depending of which ship he threw in front of you (but most likely a VSD), adjust your speed and slow it down the faster you expect the ship to be.

Turn 1 : Throw your CR90As flankers forward and angle them only slightly to prepare for going in the enemy's back in Turn 2, bank a Nav token. Then move up the CR90Bs, angling them 2 clicks at the last joint. Bank Nav Tokens too.

Turn 2 : Activate the Overload Pulse B with a CF command, and throw the side arc first. If no crit, add an extra dice. Then throw the front arc. In all likelyhood, you will have at least exhausted all defense tokens from the opponent. Then move all clicks to the right to end up within the side arc. He'll fire without destroying your CR90s, then activate Dodonna's with a CF command. Do the side arc first, and add a dice if you didn't do damage (then reroll if needed). The goal is to have the opponent spend (and discard) exhausted defense tokens. Then proceed with the front arc, and follow where the other CR90B. Follow up with CF commands from your CR90As in the rear arc using H9 Turbolasers to ensure accuracies if he has at least one redirect remaining. The VSD will be so damaged, maybe destroyed in a single turn, especially if Dodonna managed to punch 1-2 in the back.

Turn 3+ : You will have obviously angled so you can make passes towards the other ships and repeat the process.

Notice how all the objectives sustain that battleplan. It's a truly hit and run list, so you'll want to maximize the damage each of your pass inflicts, then move away to another target. Against Gladiators you can afford to drill trough side arcs after disabling them, but even then rear arc shots are preferred

____

Otherwise you could go with an AFMK2 B and a Vette B to tank, and have 2 Vette As to flank. But if you want on playing the Vette As, you need some bait/tank.

thanks for the feedback, I'll have to give that list a try, tho do you feel it might have a bit of a vulnerability not having any fighter support?

It will, but it is also fast enough that it is going to force your opponents to spam squadron dials to keep up. And that means that he isn't going to repair or Navigate ot whatever. Also, it means that as soon as the carrier ship (which should be your prime target) is gone, then you have no more squadron vulnerability.

So aim to focus fire and destroy it by turns 2 to 3 at the latest, and you're relatively safe after that