So, I've seen a great deal of talk about the MC80, the Imperial, the Raider, and the Rogues/Villains pack. But really, most all of the talk about the MC30c has been sort of a "eh" reaction (that I have seen anyway). Most people seem underwhelmed by this ship, and I just wanted to go in and break it down a little, just to give my two cents on how I feel about this shrimp.

Cost:

Grade: tbd

63/69 points for its two variants. An interesting point value for this ship. It's sitting between the Nebulon and AFmkII in the Rebel lineup.

Shield/Hull

Grade: B

With a 3/3/2 shield spread and 4 hull, it's definitely reliant upon its shields. While it has less hull value than the Nebulon, it's a good bit hardier, since it has 3 side shields compared to the Nebulon's 1. The AFmkII, however, is a good bit harder to kill than the MC30c; same shield values, but 50% more hull value to chew through.

Defensive Tokens

Grade: C+ (B with Mon Mathma)

Two evades and two redirects. No brace. As an Imperial player, I'm a fan of brace, and not having it, especially on this 4-hull ship, is a bit worrisome to me. Even more worrisome is the fact that this ship needs to get in close to make use of its blacks, yet it uses two evade tokens. While these evades will help keep it alive at long range, you're not going to stay at long range for more than a turn or two before moving in. I definitely see Mon Mothma working extremely well with these things though. One thing I really do like for this, however, is that with two sets of duplicate defensive tokens, your opponent's Aims are far less useful; your opponent will need to have 2 aims in order to remove your ability to use a token. This actually makes this little ship rather good on defense, assuming it doesn't come under combined fire.

Firepower:

Grade: A-

This is where this ship begins to shine, I believe. With a base broadside of 5 dice (2 red/blue and 3 black, depending on variant), it can dish out a good bit of hurt. This ship is the first good base for Ordnance upgrades on the Rebel side, and with the new Ordnance Experts, I think this ship with ACMs is a really reliable damage-dealer. I'm a fan of the Torpedo Frigate's loadout myself; blues are the friend of bad-luck players like myself, and you'll really want those Aims in order to prevent enemy damage mitigation. Now, you could also build this thing for Ackbar and dish out long range red dice, but if you're going that route, you may as well take AFmkII's or CR90's, which both are better platforms than the MC30c for that.

Upgrades:

Grade: B

Officer, Weapons Team, Defensive Retrofit, Ordnance, Turbolasers. Honestly, there's not much more you could want for this thing. This is a plethora of options, and gives you everything you need. I don't see turbolasers getting the greatest use on this ship, but that defensive retrofit slot will be very nice if you have a few extra points and want to see your ship last a little longer. The only thing this ship is missing is a Support slot. Being able to upgrade that 3 engineering to 4 would really have been nice considering this ship's dependency on its shields. Redundant Shields helps though, but it's an expensive 8-point upgrade on this small ship.

Speed/Maneuvering:

Grade: wtf?

Okay, here this thing gets a little wonky. I mean like, this is the strangest maneuvering setup I've seen thus far. I'm not even going to go into describing the entire thing, you can look it up yourself. It's just way weird. Having four speeds is always nice, but this thing is lacking a lot of maneuverability that a close-range ship needs to have. Navigate tokens/commands are a definite need for this ship to be used well, I think. Speed 3 will be your friend, with -/I/II for your clicks, allowing you to move quick yet maneuver well enough to line up good shots. Drop down to speed 2 with a navigate after your initial broadside so you can slow down a bit an give yourself an extra yaw to place yourself right where you want to be: behind your enemy.

Misc Stats

Grade: C-

Command value of 2 is to be expected, nothing to write home about. Squadron value of 1 is always disappointing, as it limits our options, but squadron support isn't the job of this ship in our fleet, so that's also to be expected. Engineering at 3 is a good stat for this thing. Anything less would have been terrible, but man, still wishing it had the Support option to move it up to 4 to help with multiple shields. Anti-squadron firepower is a bit lackluster at one blue.

Final Thoughts

This ship certainly is the redheaded stepchild of the Rebel Fleet. Every other ship in your fleet is going to be trying to keep to mid-long range, while this one's best designed to in and brawling up close. The problem, of course, with that is it's left as an easy target when no other options are in range. With its speed, however, I see it doing best at flanking, moving in behind the enemy fleet, and working at finishing the off opponents weakened by your long-range firepower. The key will be in being patient and waiting for the opportune moment.

ACM+Ordnance Expert is definitely the way to go on this ship, I think. May be fun to run a fleet of 5 of these things with Mon Mothma.

Ran these with just ordnance tech. Enhanced arms and turbolaser reroutes. With ackbat that meant 3 red at long 3 red/2 blue at medium and 3/2/3 at close with the broadside shots. TLR means spend the evade for 2 hits or a crit.

I do find that they are overpriced and i would use them more at a 57/63 point cost.

Should compare it to the glad. Hell if these had the shot after moving ability i take one.

One thing I forgot to mention are the Title upgrades.

Foresight is awesomesauce. 8 points is a bit expensive, but geeze, with Mon Mothma, this is just nasty. Evade lets you make the opponent re-roll 2 dice instead of 1, and you can redirect to multiple facings? Fantastic for keeping this thing alive.

Admonition is a good one if you don't have Mon Mothma. Getting up close where those evades are useless? Well, now they aren't useless: you can spend them to cancel a die. Great against something like a Screed Demo-crit boat to get rid of that Crit he just spent a die to get. Again, 8 points, but it can be a very effective 8 points.

Ran these with just ordnance tech. Enhanced arms and turbolaser reroutes. With ackbat that meant 3 red at long 3 red/2 blue at medium and 3/2/3 at close with the broadside shots. TLR means spend the evade for 2 hits or a crit.

I do find that they are overpriced and i would use them more at a 57/63 point cost.

Should compare it to the glad. Hell if these had the shot after moving ability i take one.

Except the re-route circuits and the enhanced armaments are both turbolaser upgrades.

I actually disagree with some of your thoughts.

A speed 4 ship that does not rely on Engine Techs is a great thing. It is a little harsh with the lack of a high end turn but we only see a speed 4 sharp turn on the CR90 so this cakes sense for a ship that wants to broadside and not double arc.

Admonition is also a good upgrade allowing you to burn those Evades when you get at close range.

Assault Proton Torpedoes I think are far better with this ship. Being able to deal a face up damage card BEFORE the rest of your damage hits can cripple ships. This makes it an amazing ship with Dodonna.

Oh, I do definitely agree that black-dice ship with speed 4 is awesome. Never disputed that bit. It's the strange maneuverability spread that gets me. One of the things that makes it difficult is having to plan out each speed. With a ship like the Imperial, it's nice to know that your maneuverability scales with your speed in a reliable fashion. A speed change with this ship can drastically change how your maneuverability handles, so that's just something that would need extra planning or practice to work with.

Assault Proton Torpedoes is a good upgrade. I wouldn't necessarily say it's better, but it's a different way to go about it. It's great with Dodanna, but alone, I still think I prefer ACMs: the ability to dish out 2 extra damage that your opponent can't brace or redirect away is fantastic, especially in the late game, which is when I think the MC30c should be coming in to do damage and finish off opponents. Especially opponents who have had their shields stripped away.

For Admonition, am I right in thinking you can only burn one Evade per shot, or can you do it multiple times?

Its actually pretty easy after working with it. Speed 3 gets you into the attack vector you want and speed gets you into the close range. The fact that you can do this is really nice. It also helps that if you try his curve out on a tool you can place it on either side and not overlap.

2 Extra damage is great for a ship like the Gladiator that can survive and get double arcs where it relies on that additional damage to have its second shot pump home. The MC30c does not quite fill that roll since it is a hit and run ship. One strong attack is maybe all you get if you are not careful.

I believe you can use as many defense tokens as you want. It is not worded like some other cards like Precision Strike which has a 1 per ___ limit. It may fall under not using an upgrade card more than once per attack but I am not sure on that due to wording.

So, set the MC30c at the corner of your deployment opposite your enemy, start at Speed 4 first turn, speed 3 next turn to maneuver into position, and slow to 2 to stay behind them after that? It's not a bad plan, especially against a grouped up enemy fleet. Needs a lot of navigate tokens, but with how much damage you're doing, I think you're okay sacrificing concentrate fire for that positioning.

So, set the MC30c at the corner of your deployment opposite your enemy, start at Speed 4 first turn, speed 3 next turn to maneuver into position, and slow to 2 to stay behind them after that? It's not a bad plan, especially against a grouped up enemy fleet. Needs a lot of navigate tokens, but with how much damage you're doing, I think you're okay sacrificing concentrate fire for that positioning.

Yup. You can also glide it around the side arc of most all SD's and next turn if you have initiative unleash hell 2.0, works like a charm on the ISD which the MC30c is almost made to kill.

Thanks to the high amount of firepower out of its side you dont need to worry about concentrate fire as much. Low Squadron command means that it does not often worry about that either and so all it boils down to is Repair and Navigate.

this ship really needs the move then fire up grade, and any ship armed for close in fighting should

I really see this as the best anti-conga line ship. It's fast enough to get into the front arc of the lead ship. From there it can just wait for that ship to cruise up into black dice range before zipping off.

Rather than hunting/chasing ships like a Gladiator, I can see using the MC-30 to get o in front and let them come to you. With an Ackbar boosted Scout variant you even have the firepower to make them need to close the distance.

I think a good use of this ship is for escort when the inevitable demolisher comes in...

This is the demolisher counter ship.

I played against it today and was able to take it out due to boxing it and long ranged fire, it did get a nice volley off on my vsd for 5 dmg and it precisioned my brace which took out all of my front shields as my opponent also had an xi7 on it to experiment.

The mc30 is th best ship this wave and this thread title is dumb. Sorry a ginger killed your parents.

To me in my humble opinion I think the MC-30 is the best ship in wave 2. I have about four of these bad boys on pre order. And I think in theory if they were to team together on a target, that target will be torn to shreds quickly especially with Advanced proton torpedoes. Or maybe you can mix it up and put ACM's on one and APT's on the others and go in hard like piranhas like blood in water.

The mc30 is th best ship this wave and this thread title is dumb. Sorry a ginger killed your parents.

I meant to say the "Redheaded Step-child of the Rebels" but wasn't thinking about it. It is sorta the black-dice sheep of the family. The entire rest of the crew predominantly fires long-range red dice, whereas this ship is sorta meant to get down and dirty in the close range brawl.

Also, I'm a ginger IRL, so I can make these jokes.

IMO, being a ginger I disagree. I think this ship will be quite a great close support escort. I plan on keeping her tight into my fleet to give the Imperial ships that want to get too close too fast something to think about.

Redheaded nothing

Akbar + gunnery

Fling 4-5 red long range broadsides with the best of them; with the flexibility of close range black dice as a threat

Nah, the Neb-B is still the black sheep. The MC30 is closer ranged, but it's preferred arc meshes just fine with the rest of the rebels. I see it as a good deterent ship. You keep it close to one of your other ships that are vulnerable to Gladiators and the like. The MC30 makes them pay for closing. I prefer the scout variant since it can hold back, but still contribute at long range. I'm more inclined to prefer ACMs over the APTs. The reason being I really don't want to be in range to use black dice if a ship's shields are still up. Otherwise there's a very good chance I'm getting shot back at close range. That's not something a ship with no brace token wants. Give me the extra points of straight damage to make sure that bastard is dead.

The mc30 is th best ship this wave and this thread title is dumb. Sorry a ginger killed your parents.

Hmmmmm . . . I know want to do a forum "Best comment of the day" award. . .

Redheaded nothing

Akbar + gunnery

Fling 4-5 red long range broadsides with the best of them; with the flexibility of close range black dice as a threat

Add 3 more dice at close range and this thing is murder.

Don't forget that this is a great counter to the nebs being flanked. I know JJs Jugernauts is working on something for this.

The shrimp is a glass hammer. If that fits your play style, this is the greatest ship of wave 2 (black and blue dice!). If not you probably think it is garbage (4 hull!)

Personally I like it, adds a new dimension to Rebel play in the same way as the Raider for the Empire. Will take some practice to master, but I can see it doing really well.

Awesome ship, flew one right off the board at Sullust after a missile run that I sped up for. I had heard the warnings, but those things do not turn at speed 4 from the middle of the table.

I will have at least 2-3

Redheaded nothing

Akbar + gunnery

Fling 4-5 red long range broadsides with the best of them; with the flexibility of close range black dice as a threat

Problem is, if I wanna sling out reds, I'm gonna field the guppy. The point difference between the MC30c Scout and the AFmkIIB is only 3 points (69 pts vs 72 pts). For getting 50% more hull, one more shield, an extra red die, and a Brace defense token, I'll go with the AFmkIIB for three extra points. Yes, you get the added bonus of +3 blacks if they get closes vs. the 1 blue on the AFmkIIB, but if you're going for range, then do it at its best level. Let the MC30c do what it's best at: getting up close with blacks and putting the hurt on 'em.

The Shrimp does 2 things really well.

It acts as a long range light gunship that does not shy away from things closing on it.

It acts like a capital ship hunter.

Redheaded nothing

Akbar + gunnery

Fling 4-5 red long range broadsides with the best of them; with the flexibility of close range black dice as a threat

Exactly, not to mention the huge threat it has with its anti squad.