the MC-80 is also probably the ideal platform for Silly Bombers

imagine,

Command Cruiser

*Boosted Comms (6?)

*Defiance (5)

[117]

Silly Bomber (16)

Silly Bomber (16)

Silly Bomber (16)

Silly Bomber (16)

Total: 181

boosted comms can be used to abuse Grit (scatter the bombers, force enemy squadrons to split up and fail to engage due to crit or concentrate and leave the others free) or to keep commanding silly bombers while keeping the hell away from imperials. Meanwhile, the MC-80 is throwing 8 goddamn dice from bombing runs in addition to its own considerable batteries. I'd hate to be the imperial ship that has to approach that first

You can flank that thing with two AFII Bs, each with Gunnery Teams + Advanced Projectors, plus Ackbar for 389. 11 Point bid, or Paragon/Engine Techs on the MC-80/Raymus/generic A-wing/H-9s on one ship/etc.

This is all kinds of terror...

Getting the 4 bombers in is rather nice, makes for a more rounded fleet.

I had been thinking of running something like:

Mc80 assault (Intel officer, projection dude, enhanced armament, defiance/home one)

It then lurks behind a pair of AFs pumping up their shields while throwing out horrid broadsides and/or augmenting the gunnery team shots of the AFs. Do you attack the big tanky thing boosting the others, or the weaker ships that are throwing out the most damage? Problem is it ends up being a little over 140 points and leaves very few points for squadrons.

The list i ran at the weekend was:

Ackbar

2x AF2 (gunnery teams, xi7s)

2x cr90a (slaved turrets)

4x yt2400

1x han

That was a blast with all the speed, free squadrons, and punchy long ranged fire power. The cr90s would have avoid the sides of the mc80 like the plague, but could be a real problem for it if they managed.

ISD is just impossible to kill in a normal 6turn game without some insane dice luck.

My friend and i played a game afterwords and it took a frigate, cr90, 3 xwings, 2awings, and 2 ywings SEVEN TURNS to kill it lol. I was in his rear arc most of it because i took out his VSD first. No fighters to slow me down either because i completely owned them earlier.

I dont see that thing dying in a normal 6turn game. I just dont see it. It doesnt need to do anything other than spam Engineering which lets it repair 3 shields a turn (1 due to a card to just gain a shield a turn), and it blocks soooo much damage with that lol.

MC80 with Ackbar took mine out in two volleys. Two.

In our final round the ISD died on turn 4 under the unrelenting firepower of the MC80. Of course it did a lot of damage in kind and the MC80 was finished off almost immediately after the ISD died.

MC80-Assualt Cruiser 114

*Ackbar 38

*Home one 7

*Advance Projectors 6

* ECM 7

*H9 turbos 8

180

AFII A 81

*Gallant Haven 8

*Xi7 Turbos 6

*ECM 7

102

CR90 B 39

*Leia 3

*Advanced Projectors 6

48

Dutch 16

Wedge 19

X- Wing 13

A - Wing 11

A - Wing 11

400

Well people were hilariously confused about how the new commanders worked

Some thought Vader just discarded rather than spent tokens (making him junk)

Some thought you needed to shoot out of both sides for Akbar (making him the most overpriced garbage in the game)

We set that straight right quick, though. The rulebook clarifies what "spending" means for defense tokens (exhaust, or discard an exhausted one) and Akbar does not need to make two attacks to trigger

Playing them correctly made them worth their points, and quite explosive fun to watch

Yea, had to correct Mikael on Vader a few times

What was that sound?

O that was the sound of Mikael being thrown under the bus.

Well people were hilariously confused about how the new commanders worked

Some thought Vader just discarded rather than spent tokens (making him junk)

Some thought you needed to shoot out of both sides for Akbar (making him the most overpriced garbage in the game)

We set that straight right quick, though. The rulebook clarifies what "spending" means for defense tokens (exhaust, or discard an exhausted one) and Akbar does not need to make two attacks to trigger

Playing them correctly made them worth their points, and quite explosive fun to watch

Yea, had to correct Mikael on Vader a few times

What was that sound?

O that was the sound of Mikael being thrown under the bus.

Every time. EVERY TIME!

ISD-II, two VSD-IIs, with Motti driving in the Imperial. Spend the rest of the points on any upgrade you like, from H9s to Intelligence officers to Gunnery teams, Overload pulses, and Heavy Turbolaser Turrets. Park them in a line in one corner of the map and advance at your opponent. Anything not trying to flank you is going to wither under that much firepower.

at only speed 2 you may spend a lot of time getting there

at only speed 2 you may spend a lot of time getting there

I'd make one of the Vic 2's into a Vic 1, saving some points, and have it run the back as sternguard. This will protect against flankers and such. With the remaining points you might be able to afford a second Imperial (in place of the other Vic 2), then you can cruise into pewpew range at speed 3.

One thing I will say is that I'm not sold on the internal balance of some of the commanders so far. External (Rebel vs. Imperial) I think is fine, but internally, I think there are definitely "better" choices for the points than others, and the dispersion of values is probably larger for commanders than most types of cards.

For instance, I'm struggling to build a fleet for Wave 2 where Ackbar is not the best choice for Rebels in all cases. I can come up with some niche fleets where I can argue for other commanders (MM for an all/mostly CR90 fleet, Riekaan for an all-shrimp fleet), but even then, I feel like you are deliberately avoiding the best option with your build.

Similarly for Imperials, Vader and Screed are very strong compared to many of the others.

Is anyone else having this sense?

One thing I will say is that I'm not sold on the internal balance of some of the commanders so far. External (Rebel vs. Imperial) I think is fine, but internally, I think there are definitely "better" choices for the points than others, and the dispersion of values is probably larger for commanders than most types of cards.

For instance, I'm struggling to build a fleet for Wave 2 where Ackbar is not the best choice for Rebels in all cases. I can come up with some niche fleets where I can argue for other commanders (MM for an all/mostly CR90 fleet, Riekaan for an all-shrimp fleet), but even then, I feel like you are deliberately avoiding the best option with your build.

Similarly for Imperials, Vader and Screed are very strong compared to many of the others.

Is anyone else having this sense?

for rebels I wouldn't say it's a problem. Yes ackbar is crazy good... But he is almost double the cost of dodonna and almost 30% higher then the next closest. So I do not think there is an issue here. If you want the best you are going to pay a premium. Otherwise you can save a lot

nope

commanders scale wildly depending on which ship you take

Akbar goes ballistic with broadsides (MC-80, MC-30, Afmk2)

MM noms the double evades (cr-90, MC-30)

Garm pretty much takes care of anything else (especially Nebulons, can't imagine running them without that invaluable navigate token + first turn nav command; similarly useful on MC-30s and gives MC-80s a nifty 3 tokens)

Riekann I have no idea, but it probably involves turbo-laser re-routes

only poor Big-D doesn't really have a home, imo

thing we have to remember with Akbar is that he's expensive and five kinds of ****** without broadsides. Enemy initiative or the opposite (bad choice of objectives) could really hem the poor guy in.

Plus he does jack diddly with squadrons for that much cost, or against them for that matter

I think big D does have a home. You don't take him for his ability you take him because he's cheap!

I think big D does have a home. You don't take him for his ability you take him because he's cheap!

#truth

I do wonder how much that'll matter @ 400, though

@300, I could see it for squeezing in silly things like 10 Y-wings, but at 400 there's more than enough room for Fatties & Ys and then Garm to enable it all

so here's the deal

3 Afmk-Bs w/flight controllers and hangars

with Garm, you get 12 Y-wings [394 total]

with Big-D you get 13 [399 total]

yeah, not sure if that's worth it, but it's there

The thing about Akbar is, for 18 extra points, over Dodonna and less for other Admirals, what would you buy that would give you the equivalent a value. 2 extra dice for every ship, for 18, 13, or 8 points? yes please, thank you very much

Can't wait to play him again!

I saw a ISD melt almost completely on turn two and wipe off the board first shot of turn three. Advanced gunnery+Ackbar let a home one and a Assault Frigate just go to town on the poor thing.

The thing about Akbar is, for 18 extra points, over Dodonna and less for other Admirals, what would you buy that would give you the equivalent a value. 2 extra dice for every ship, for 18, 13, or 8 points? yes please, thank you very much

Can't wait to play him again!

it's not actually 2 extra dice

what Akbar actually does (which is still incredibly significant, mind) is take your front arc and shrlops it into your side

you're not actually increasing your damage output until you put Gunnery Team because you do the same damage via double-arcing (if not more by dodging defense tokens), Akbar just (effectively) makes it far easier to do (resulting in a huge amount of positioning flexibility)

Gunnery Team is basically Akbar's jam because it takes your shrloped double-arc and use it twice (admittedly against two different targets but considering the numbers of ships in play @400 there will be plenty of damage to pass around) which does result in 2 extra dice.

About the only time you don't take Gunnery Team is on a Mon Cal (because it can't ) and you take the Mon Cal because Home One is disgusting with Akbared ships running Gunnery Team

disclaimer: I'm not saying Akbar is anything other than amazing!

he's hyper-awesome competitive; just not the be all, end all (just as skreed wasn't)

he will, however, be the ideal commander for beginners (Afmk2-Bs are also the ideal ship for beginners, imo, due to chuncky stats and forgiving arcs)

easy to learn; but tons of options to master

... although if you manage to pull off an Akbar Slash, hang onto your Wookie

... although if you manage to pull off an Akbar Slash, hang onto your Wookie

oh that won't ever happen

the first thing your opponent will do when you try to set up a slash is dive into the mon cal's front arc

no, with Akbar you gotta think Old School naval warfare

it's all about that perpendicularity!

I have seen plenty of double arcing out of whales and stalactites already.

Personally I think Ackbar is the best well-rounded admiral of the Rebellion. His ability is constant, it works for nearly every ship in the fleet, and he creates dice... something only a few other expensive upgrades do... for the whole fleet. The only build that won't utilize Ackbar well are ones where Nebulons are more than half your list.

or cr-90s

cr-90s really don't need Akbar to generate that much dice; they should be doing it on their own with their beautiful nav charts

and any fleet that doesn't need Akbar shouldn't take him. 38 point is a lot and you're giving up some other great benefits that the other rebel commanders offer (Especially MM's big boost to their survivability)

at his price, Akbar is someone you build around

Ak

at his price, Akbar is someone you build around

Related to this, running Akbar means ships like CR-90s and Neb-bs are harder to mix into your fleet. Running Dodonna doesn't automatically remove a few ships from serious consideration.

Dodonna is great in any bomber-heavy Rebel list.

It doesn't take much to get a single crit through to a major ship. And even one 4-card draw can be crippling to a major ship.

Ak

at his price, Akbar is someone you build around

Related to this, running Akbar means ships like CR-90s and Neb-bs are harder to mix into your fleet. Running Dodonna doesn't automatically remove a few ships from serious consideration.

I could not disagree more.

First: Ackbar makes the strongest ships in the rebel fleet (AFII, MC30, MC80) significantly better. Some basic math:

In a 4 ship fleet, Ackbar + Gun Teams means an allocated cost of 16.5 points per ship to generate four additional red dice per turn per turn. In a 5 ship fleet, Ackbar + Gun Teams means an allocated cost of 14.6 points per ship to generate four additional red dice per ship per turn. That's insanity. It's far better than anything else in the game in terms of cost per damage.

For a 1:1 comparison, enhanced armaments + gun teams are 17 points per ship to generate two additional red dice per turn! Ackbar is literally twice as good as the already best loadout for the average AFII.

Similarly, with corvettes, Ackbar can change the side arc to 3 red / 1 blue, superior to the wide front arc of 2 red / 1 blue. Double arc shots with CR90s are best, but if you put slaved turrets on an Ackbar corvette because you intend to scuttle sideways and stay at range, you are rocking a 50 point ship with 4 red / 1 blue as your attack out the side. Thus, even there, his impact on your ship is noticeable.

Second: you have to evaluate Ackbar based on incremental cost. You are REQUIRED to take a commander; we can't have a debate about "$!%! that stupid fish guy, he always walks into traps, just take a CR90B", as you have to downgrade from Ackbar to, at the cheapest, 20 points of Dodonna.

Thus, when evaluating commanders, you might as well assume you are building Dodonna + 280 points or Dodonna + 380 points and then Ackbar is an 18 point upgrade that gives you buckets of dice everywhere. Again, he's insane. Your average evade token will eliminate 1 damage at long range, and MM brings this into medium range. However, Ackbar means your average long-range side shot adds 1.5 expected damage before mitigation, and with gun teams you can do this more than once!

Third: building around Ackbar definitely makes him more effective, but that is true of almost every commander. Taking Garm in a corvette swarm is just as stupid as taking Ackbar with nothing but Nebulon B's. My point, however, is this: Ackbar is really, really good. The cumulative advantage for building around Ackbar is FAR greater than virtually any other rebel commander. This is why I am saying he is great.

Fourth: I see a lot of arguments around here of "if this, if that, or if you do this, this is better than that in this specific situation" etc. etc. etc., and a lot of this is just back-rationalization to make arguments for things that are, on average, just bad. There is no situation in which, given that you can design your own fleet, if your goal is to win that you would take Dodonna over Ackbar. None. Ackbar dominates the decision space, from a game theory perspective, as the advantage he can bring with other ships when coordinated across a fleet make him far, far better.

EDIT: Guys, Dodonna is your classic "win more" card. If you are already at the point where you are dealing severe crits to an enemy ship, you are probably going to kill it anyways. I think people over-value his ability, but how much incremental additional damage does Dodonna actually account for in a game vs. just throwing 4 more red dice per ship per turn with Ackbar? It's not close. If we get way more things that allow you to do crits to ships that are undamaged (Luke and Dodonna's pride) and you can build an entire fleet where everything has this attribute, then we can talk, but right now, he's in the "half the time his ability triggers you already killed the other ship" camp.

This is my point about commander balancing. I see obvious and very powerful Ackbar strategies, and I doubt any of the other rebel admirals will come close in terms of total sustained advantage (caveat: if Riekaan actually allows ship necromancy, I may change my opinion on him).