So two thoughts:

1 - You are taking an MC80 for the combination of titles, durability, and synergy. I don't see much of an argument for taking 2, as of yet, but as others have said, having one opens up possibilities that simply do not exist with just assault frigates. With the heightened lethality of wave 2, I think having a ship durable enough to take the best punch from an opponent might matter.

2 - I'm not sure a conga line is the best formation for an MC80. One thing I am wondering is how the formations / strategies that one would want to use with the new ships will look; if you take the MC80 and multiple death shrimp or corvettes, do you fly a conga line? Or is the MC80 the anvil and the others are the hammer?

3 - If anything is going to unlock effective B-Wing tactics (which, for me, are the only bombers that actually could justify their points in damage to a ship other than those in a Rhymer blob), it's the MC80 title to bus them around quickly before engagement. This may also work with some of the insanely good bombers (Nym, anyone?) in the Rogues & Villains.

I must be the only one contemplating running 3 of these babies then

3X Command Cruisers, Leading Shots, and Slaved Turrets on each and then Ackbar and Home One, With the spare points maybe I would bump one up to EA instead of slaved turrets in case Advanced Gunnery comes up.

#FeartheFish (Okay not really It certainly has its weakness like no squadron defense and activation order hurts but you still have tremendous firepower)

I can see why Home One is important in this list, but consider you could have taken 3 guppies with gunnery teams for your two slash-only MC80's. Ackbar scales up with number of ships/attacks, so you're looking at 3 boosts per turn (6 max if you do the impossible slash) vs 4-7 boosts per turn in a much easier to maneuver configuration.

I am thinking about it as a quality of shots VS quantity. As an X-wing player I have seen how bad unmodified dice can be (I feel like I tend to see blanks more than the "expected" 25%) So I really like having leading shots in there. Also from X-wing having your max firepower available longer seems like a better option (since once you lose a guppy which I feel will happen fairly quick in Wave 2 you lose the advantage that 3 guppies over 2 MC80s brings)

I agree that Ackbar needs more ships so two mc80's isn't optimal. Ackbar would do well in a corvette swarm.

Garm would be the best admiral for a dual mc80 list. With 1-2 Neb and a lot of fighters.

Conga line is harder to setup than with afii. So my idea is a kind of line abreast and you can then banana split or claw formation depending on the enemy.

Independence is imo a load of spunk, but if you love B-wings it can make them actually useful against opposing AFmk2s and such by getting them into position faster than the fatties can run. Personally, though, I'd rather spend the points upgrading B-wings into Sillies.

I once thought this way. I'm starting to see the potential of Independence with Boosted Comms now. The B-Wing is the most dangerous bomber in the game. Period. End of story. Yeah, you have the silly bomber, but that costs extra. Point for point, the B-Wing is the best damage dealer. There's thread buried here somewhere that proves it.

When you add in the cost of the Independence title spread across the 4 B-Wings you'll activate, they cost the same as the H-6. The B-Wings will have the same average speed, don't have heavy, and are better against other squadrons. H-6s will have grit and the higher in combat threat radius (by which I mean the amount of space they can cover and still shoot). At that point it's about preference.

I dismissed Independence initially as well. I've done a complete 180 and I'm now openly advocating for it.

I think that once people get over their obsession with Ackbar, new and innovative uses for the MC-80 Will open up.

It has potential.

I am leaning towards only needing one (and I got it as Sullust). The lack of gunnery teams is an important limit in that consideration.

AF's are better in multis with ackbar, they can take gunnery teams. Def want one, IMO only reason for 2 is if you play over-400 fun games, squeezing 2+ mc80's into 400 points instead of AF's gets inefficient, the cool upgrades you can play with on MC80 become unaffordable with multis, and you get more red dice over multiple targets with more AF's.

I've thought about a 2 MC80 carrier approach, either activating 10 squadrons a turn or activating 8 with the ability to do so at long range.

I've been blown away by the power of my MC80, and can't wait to get two on the table. I have multiple list ideas, but the one I like the most is 2 MC80s with Redundant Shields, Engineering Teams and Veteran Captains, with Garm Bel Iblis, Projection Teams on Redemption and Leia on Tantive IV. Whichever Cruiser is taking the biggest beating can recover up to 7 shields a turn! Each can passively recover 3 a turn with tokens, while still getting full value from their other commands.

Seems like a tough nut to crack.

I've also seen offensively upgraded MC80s tearing through Imperial ships like tissue paper; Defiance is a scary title.

#FeartheFish (Okay not really It certainly has its weakness like no squadron defense and activation order hurts but you still have tremendous firepower)

What do you mean no squadron defence?

Independence is imo a load of spunk, but if you love B-wings it can make them actually useful against opposing AFmk2s and such by getting them into position faster than the fatties can run. Personally, though, I'd rather spend the points upgrading B-wings into Sillies.

What's a Silly?

"Silly" is a random name for the new Scurrg bomber people decided to use. I have no idea why, and it sounds dumb. But there you go!

I think that once people get over their obsession with Ackbar, new and innovative uses for the MC-80 Will open up.

It has potential.

Like tanking head on with your opponent and putting a Neb on either flank. Head on your Nebs are dishing it out with accuracies and once your opponent goes for the flank, which they will, your 'Home One' gets to unload. With 'Nav Team' you can even do that handbrake turn people have mentioned to either cover a Neb or present your broadside.

MC80 Assault, Nav Team, ECM, Redundant Shields

Support Frigate, Salvation, X17,

Support Frigate, X17

254pts

So many points left for upgrades/additional ships. Go 'Command Cruiser' and turn the MC80 into a mother ship for squadrons, take advantage of the gap your Nebs made in their shields. If I can accuracy out their brace every shot there will be a gap and even better for bombers it will be on their bow, so less commands needed to keep them in position.

If redemption and Projection Experts make an appearance you have a pretty good shield wall.

Your reserve could be an assault frigate or MC30c. You can then either cover a flank with them or counter attack which ever flank gets targeted.

First I have to confess that I don't have any yet. But there is one big difference between the AFII vs the MC80, where their guns are placed. There are some real advantages to having your guns and shields pointed sideways. It totally change how the ships engage the enemy. Sure they're big and relatively slow but they should still be pretty good at staying away from those nasty black dice ehavy forward arcs from Star Destroyers. I think the MC30 is really going to excel at this, but shooting out of your sides instead of your front can be a great advantage.

#FeartheFish (Okay not really It certainly has its weakness like no squadron defense and activation order hurts but you still have tremendous firepower)

What do you mean no squadron defence?

I mean the list's AntiSquadron fire is nonexistent, 1 blue and Black per MC80, and with slaved turrets it can only fire 1x per turn and you are better off shooting 9ish dice at a ship rather than 2 at squadrons and there isn't points to really add squadrons either except by dropping the upgrades which would defeat the purpose of trying to jack up the broadsides as much as possible

"Silly" is a random name for the new Scurrg bomber people decided to use. I have no idea why, and it sounds dumb. But there you go!

exactly

Scurgg is a dumb silly name

hence, Silly bombers

they also look funny

I think that once people get over their obsession with Ackbar, new and innovative uses for the MC-80 Will open up.

It has potential.

problem is some of that potential is with Akbar

Home One is absolutely disgusting when supporting gunnery teamed Shrimps/Afmk2s. Can't imagine a better place for it, as no other combo can produce such dice-heavy attacks at such volume.

Otherwise, though, I believe others are right in finding the MC-80 inefficient with him; especially since it can't take gunnery teams

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so, what does Akbar and Home One not do? Squadrons

their benefits are ship-only, the command cruiser has 4 Squadron and room for Boosted Comms; 2 and 2 is 4 etc.

Independence I've actually suddenly started wanting to try (might just be wave 2 excitement) and it has very obvious synergy with B-wings. Most of all, it gets over their crippling speed when it comes to setting up engagements against enemies that don't want to ever approach you (i.e, other rebels)

Defiance should honestly just be rolled onto the base cost of the MC-80, it's just that dumb. Not only is it a dice of any color at any range, but it's not round or target limited. Got two different activated enemies in two different hullzones? How about one activated enemy in two hullzones? that's two extra dice. 5 points.

And yes, you should roll Defiance if you're not rolling Independence, even if you're making a dedicated carrier. Why? because the ship gets to attack after the squadrons, and adding a potential 7 dice on top of what your bombers put out is just disgusting.

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so what about other commanders (not counting Home One Akbar)?

MM is out (no evade) and Riekann imo is not something you want on a ship that pricey.

This leaves us with Big-D (bombers galore!) and my personal favorite, good ole Garm

the only problem with Garm is that a Speed 1 or 2 nav chart doesn't allow much flexibility with the almighty nav token, but still that's 3 command tokens for the MC-80 and then more for the rest of your fleet.

I don't think we should have gotten the Scurrg in the first place. The only reason it and Nym exist in the GCW is because Galaxies says so, and Galaxies always looked fairly cheap as far as RPGs go, with little to no interesting contributions to the lore otherwise. If it were me, we'd get either the K-Wing or the Pulsar Skate in its place.

Anyway, I like the increased firepower of the MC80 over the assault frigates (along with fighter 4). I don't have one yet, but I like what I see, and I'm eager to amass firepower out of the flanks with Ackbar and Enhanced armament and vomit firepower out the side. I imagine it would be as if the massive ion gun from the clone-wars era Malevolence was mounted on it and fired at opposing ships.

Not sure how I'd feel about two. Nowadays I don't mount gunnery teams on most of my star destroyers, so I'm used to making the most out of one shot per turn anyway. If the MC80 can amass more firepower than the ISDs when shooting, I'd consider that a plus.