So, I play (almost) exclusively Rebels, and Ackbar kind of sticks in my craw. I love him, but I feel ashamed that I love him, and I hate that I have to feel ashamed for loving him. I feel ashamed for loving him because the prevailing wisdom is that he's easy mode and nothing can reliably beat him. I picked up Rebels at the very beginning with the core set because they were the underdogs in my area, and I hate setting my underdogs become the oppressive overlords. Because of this, I've been intentionally excluding Ackbar from my lists and trying to play against him, to demonstrate that he can, in fact, be defeated.

Unfortunately, I'm terrible about remembering to take pictures during games, so I only have a few. Sorry!

So last night I played a game against my friend Patrick, who was running Ackbar. I have a Wave 1 400-point tournament coming up this weekend, so I decided to use my list for that against him. So the matchup was:

Rebels (Ardaedhel)

My Brother's Blood Machine (391/400)

===================================

Assault Frigate Mark II: Assault Frigate Mk.II B (72 + 25)

+ Garm Bel Iblis (25)

Assault Frigate Mark II: Assault Frigate Mk.II B (72 + 11)

+ Flight Controllers (6)

+ Expanded Hangar Bay (5)

Assault Frigate Mark II: Assault Frigate Mk.II B (72 + 11)

+ Flight Controllers (6)

+ Expanded Hangar Bay (5)

Squadrons: A-wing Squadron (11)

Squadrons: A-wing Squadron (11)

Squadrons: A-wing Squadron (11)

Squadrons: A-wing Squadron (11)

Squadrons: B-wing Squadron (14)

Squadrons: B-wing Squadron (14)

Squadrons: B-wing Squadron (14)

Squadrons: B-wing Squadron (14)

Squadrons: B-wing Squadron (14)

Squadrons: B-wing Squadron (14)

Objectives Assault: Advanced Gunnery (0)

Objectives Defense: Fire Lanes (0)

Objectives Navigation: Superior Positions (0)

------------------------------------------------------------

Rebels (Patrick)

Ackbar's Turkeys (395/400)

=========================

Home One: MC80 Assault Cruiser (114 + 69)

+ Admiral Ackbar (38)

+ Raymus Antilles (7)

+ Electronic Countermeasures (7)

+ Leading Shots (4)

+ XI7 Turbolasers (6)

+ Home One (7)

Assault Frigate Mark II: Assault Frigate Mk.II B (72 + 7)

+ Gunnery Team (7)

CR90 Corvette: CR90 Corvette A (44 + 11)

+ Leia Organa (3)

+ Slaved Turrets (6)

+ Jaina's Light (2)

CR90 Corvette: CR90 Corvette A (44 + 10)

+ Enhanced Armament (10)

Squadrons: Dash Rendar (24)

I don't know what his objectives were, because I opted to go second. I knew I would have deployment advantage, so I could position myself well to intercept his fleet. The biggest drawback to going second for me was my objectives: I knew Advanced Gunnery was in there, and could be nasty on the MC80. I figured that with deployment advantage and significantly more nimble ships than his flagship, I could probably either keep myself out of range of the stogie or only have one ship in range of it at a time.

He also had activation advantage, but only by one ship, so my strategy going in was to try and nuke a corvette to shut down that advantage.

Setup and Deployment

He did end up picking Advanced Gunnery from my objectives, and putting it on that MC80 Christmas tree. Mine went on one of the non-flagship whales.

Obstacle setup did not turn out to be super relevant. Generally both of us were trying to deploy them to herd the other toward the middle of the table. The station was on his side of the table near the middle, positioned so I could conceivably run over to it if I found that I needed to.

Patrick deployed the space stogie first, right in the middle of the table and pointing directly at me: an interesting choice, but his reasoning was that there was nothing subtle about what he was doing with it, and we both knew I could completely out-deploy him anyway, so he might as well deploy the keystone to build his formation around. It also gave him flexibility in the rest of the deployment by forcing me to respond and reveal which side I wanted to go to. So I threw down an equally-noncommittal whale right in the middle pointed at his nose. I stalled with A-wings deployed all the way up against my long edge of the mat, and he deployed the rest of his fleet with Jaina's Light on my left, and the whale and the other corvette on my left, all in close line-abreast formation and burning at me at speed 2/3. I decided I'd cut toward that Jaina's Light to deny him clear shots with the whale and try and get the alpha strike on Jaina and her mother, so I dropped Garm and the other whale on my left, with the B-Wings still in activation range but between the whales and where I expected the MC80 to go.

One thing is like to bring up here while setting dials for this fleet: it can be hard to keep all your squadron commands covered while still getting the nav or eng you need. So what I do is rotate them in. I'll give all three ships Nav-Squadron for the first two commands, then for the rest of the game rotate out which ship gets an Eng while the other two get squadron for that turn. Helps to mitigate the requirement for squadron commands dials.

Turn 1

The first turn was mostly posturing and Garm bucks, as he used the nimble corvettes to set up the quickest conga line I've ever seen, and I set my ships slowly forward in a staggered line abreast, trying to set up to keep them all in the stogie's front arc once we came in range. I always start at speed 2 with Garm and plot a nav for round 1--it makes your deployment extremely flexible and shows for some pretty good deception. In this case, I slowed most of the fleet to 1, to delay engagement and force him into my range, and ensure the fighters had time to get into position.

He did make what I consider to be a pretty substantial mistake in turn 1: he moved Dash too far forward. He moved to slightly under range 5 of my inactivated B-Wings, which put him about range 8 or so of my inactivated A-wings. So during the squadron phase I jumped the A's and B's forward, positioning all the A's and most of the B's for the alpha strike on Dash next turn.

Turn 2

Jaina's Light went first, with a concentrate fire, and opened up on my fighter swarm before running. Fortunately, I'd been able to drop my fighters at range ~3 out front of her, so she couldn't escape activated B-Wings, and went down in flames. My A-wings were able to jump up and pin Dash and get him down to 2 health, but I couldn't quite get both him and Jaina's in the same round. I decided I was happy to trade a fighter for a CR90 and Dash, with an added bonus that the fighters were positioned right where Ackbar's flagship needed to go.

Turn 3

With Jaina's Light a lot brighter and wreckagier than before, I had activation parity as long as I could keep from losing a whale this turn. Unfortunately, I was looking down the barrels of the other CR90 and a long-range shot from Ackbar's nose. He decided to address the longer-term threat, though, and took a squadron shot with the corvette before woop-woop-wooping it out of there to save it from Jaina's fate. As it was, I nearly got it with an Advanced Gunnery double broadside. Faced with the choice between a long range nose shot at a whale and a squadron shot out the nose, Ackbar's Advanced Gunnery-enabled flagship opted to take both, scaring the crap out of every B-Wing pilot and not doing much to the whale. This put the Home One in a pretty precarious position with respect to the whale, at which point Patrick made one of the most amazing MC80 maneuvers I've seen yet, and triggering me to finally take a **** picture.

Unfortunately for him, his sweet drift was immediately punished by clouds of B-Wings all up in his grill. The thing I love about B-Wings is how scary their dice look. People who wouldn't ever brace a TIE bomber's hit-crit are terrified when they see that hit-crit/hit roll, even when they're starting down the broadside of an Advanced Gunnery whale. The B's managed to get the front shields down and force the brace to exhaust, and hit one damage on the hull. Unfortunately, the whale got one decent shot for 4 damage which redirected to the far side, and then almost completely whiffed the second roll.

With one CR90 down and the other out of the fight,I was feeling good about the game... But my whales were also just about to finally drift into Home One's side arcs at uncomfortably close range...

Turn 4

Fortunately, the damage from the B-Wings persuaded Patrick that he needed that engineering dial Home One was sitting on, so he activated it first. He had a double arc on one whale at medium range, or a broadside on the objective ship at medium, with fighters all over his nose. He decided to go for the fighters and the broadside (no Ackbar) on the objective ship, dealing some damage and getting an A-wing before bumping just about every one of the fighters, who obligingly stacked right back up on his nose and exposed side. One more squadron activation took the front shields back down and planted a couple more shots on the hull, then the heavily damaged bombers bugged out. His whale activated, taking a few obstructed pot shots before coming around the front of Home One to aggressively pursue my trailing ship.

A squadron activation from my next whale marked the end of Ackbar's reign of terror, as an A-wing and 3 B-Wings took him down to 1 hull left and no tokens, with my objective ship getting the last damage in with a broadside.

At this point the game was pretty much over. We did play it out, with his whale coming within a couple hull of killing my trailing ship, and his corvette came zooming back in to meet its demise.

But with so many points invested in the behemoth, once it went down he found himself with a scattered fleet and neither free extra dice nor free braces.

Final damage report was:

Patrick killed 2× B-Wings and 1× A-wing

Ard killed 2× CR90, 1× Home One, 1× Dash Rendar

My takeaways were, first of all, deployment advantage was huge for me. Particularly against Ackbar's MC80. The thing about that ship is that, while defensively drives like a pig, offensively it's a very maneuverable ship in that it has a very narrow safe zone and is hugely punishing if you leave that safe zone. So being able to dictate where and how the battle will take place is much bigger deal than it seems like it should be against such a giant slug.

Second, Ackbar/Home One makes his picket ships amazing, but they can also be a bit of a liability. Sure, a row of Ackbar corvettes hit really hard, but they'd better be **** sure nothing of any substance gets a shot on them, or they're so many wasted points. It's very enticing to try and charge directly in to kill Fishface immediately to neuter the fleet, but sometimes the best way to cut down on those piles of dice is to just kill what's tossing them.

Third, there's a tool available to both factions, that answers both of the first two points brilliantly. Squadrons. Squadrons chased down that first corvette, they gave me ranged hitting power on the best ranged ship build in the game, they gave me the deployments to plan the entire game to go how I needed it to.

Fourth, if you brought a token fighter screen, save it for the crucial moment of the battle when you can tie up all the bombers, or deny them shots on your critical arc. Keep it behind your ships to keep it disengaged until you need it... especially against faster attackers.

And finally, I know A-wings are all the rage right now, for good reason, but I think a mix of A-wings and bombers gets much better mileage. Four A-wings is just the right number: with Flight Controllers, they reliably alpha strike anything without Scatter (you either get the accuracy or you don't with that), they're enough to take down a whole shield facing on anything that's fast enough to require A-wings to chase down, and they're two deployments with the flexibility to bounce to wherever you need them afterward. What they don't give you, though, is the heavy hitting of the bombers. Well-driven B-Wings can get where you need them to be when the heavy hitting starts to happen, they hit hard enough to make a major difference, and that fifth hull goes a long way in keeping them alive. Two of the ones that took down Home One in this game had one hull left when it died.

Anyway, what are your thoughts? I'd like to do more of these, mostly because I love reading other people's, so any feedback on the report itself is very welcome too!

Your first paragraph were hooks in my gamer mind. I love it. Invalidating the OPness removes your guilt from using the now disproved OPness in future games.

Totally get it. And actively practice. /tiphat

A great read - nicely done on the battle as well. I feel the same way you do about Rebels and Ackbar. It's enough to have me consider switching over to the "underdog" Imperials when wave 2 comes. At least some of the time, anyways.

The only issue I have is that you're giving all our squadron-loving secrets away! Shhhhh...

I wonder if it's worth dropping a squadron for ECM on a couple of the AF's? Increased survivability on the ships might offset the loss of a squadron.

Prevailing, yes

Wisdom, hell no

Akbar's fine; just gotta tell folks to l2trap

I don't understand this statement: Four A-wings is just the right number: with Gunnery Teams

What do gunnery teams have to do with A-Wings?

I don't understand this statement: Four A-wings is just the right number: with Gunnery Teams

What do gunnery teams have to do with A-Wings?

I think it was edited/updated to Four A-wings is just the right number: with Flight Controllers,

In the fact that Flight Controllers are a force multiplier to the existing A-Wings without having to invest the additional 5 points to get another A-Wing

I don't understand this statement: Four A-wings is just the right number: with Gunnery Teams

What do gunnery teams have to do with A-Wings?

I think it was edited/updated to Four A-wings is just the right number: with Flight Controllers,

In the fact that Flight Controllers are a force multiplier to the existing A-Wings without having to invest the additional 5 points to get another A-Wing

Definitely noticed and fixed that right before I got up to get in the shower. XD For whatever ridiculous reason, I get those mixed up, as obvious as the distinction is.

Definitely noticed and fixed that right before I got up to get in the shower. XD For whatever ridiculous reason, I get those mixed up, as obvious as the distinction is.

Wave 1, in all reality, has been one or the other, if you had the choice.

I don't understand this statement: Four A-wings is just the right number: with Gunnery Teams

What do gunnery teams have to do with A-Wings?

I think it was edited/updated to Four A-wings is just the right number: with Flight Controllers,

In the fact that Flight Controllers are a force multiplier to the existing A-Wings without having to invest the additional 5 points to get another A-Wing

I have now personally seen 2 ISDs finished off by an A-wing. I would pay the extra 5 for the black die

I don't understand this statement: Four A-wings is just the right number: with Gunnery Teams

What do gunnery teams have to do with A-Wings?

I think it was edited/updated to Four A-wings is just the right number: with Flight Controllers,

In the fact that Flight Controllers are a force multiplier to the existing A-Wings without having to invest the additional 5 points to get another A-Wing

I have now personally seen 2 ISDs finished off by an A-wing. I would pay the extra 5 for the black die

I do not disagree. I was merely trying to resolve the language/edit conflict

A great read - nicely done on the battle as well. I feel the same way you do about Rebels and Ackbar. It's enough to have me consider switching over to the "underdog" Imperials when wave 2 comes. At least some of the time, anyways.

The only issue I have is that you're giving all our squadron-loving secrets away! Shhhhh...

I wonder if it's worth dropping a squadron for ECM on a couple of the AF's? Increased survivability on the ships might offset the loss of a squadron.

I went back and forth on those ECMs, really hard. As I mentioned, though, I just picked up a Wave 1 list I had in the chamber and threw it down; in the context of Wave 1, there's not much that hits hard enough with guaranteed accuracy that I feel like ECM is mandatory. This is, of course, not true at all in Wave 2, which means I will probably have to drop something to fit in the ECM, at least on the flagship. I would probably drop upgrades before I'd drop squadrons on this list, though... Possibly the Expanded Hangars, unfortunately. Those five deployments are a pretty big deal...

Incidentally, this is also why I put Advanced Gunnery in the objectives. There's not really anything in Wave 1 that I'm afraid enough of that I won't take AG just because it might be on the table. But Vader's Devastator and Ackbar's Home One might change my stance on that.

Mere moments after the same fleet utterly disassembled my minicarrier bomber swarm.

Home One is the death of Raiders.

Still, glad to see it get swatted down. After last night I came up with a few new ideas on how to approach it with my grey triangles.

Excellent write up, man. We should start doing these more often. We have some pretty intense and interesting match ups on mondays that go totally off the record!

I love the dual use black yoga mat. Do you use it for Yoga too?

I love the dual use black yoga mat. Do you use it for Yoga too?

Only when I'm trying to intimidate my enemies with the smell of my butt sweat.

No, I don't. I just really like it as a play surface. The rubberized surface keeps the ships in place much better than any purpose-made mat I've used yet, it looks nice, and it's exactly the right size.

I love the dual use black yoga mat. Do you use it for Yoga too?

Only when I'm trying to intimidate my enemies with the smell of my butt sweat.

No, I don't. I just really like it as a play surface. The rubberized surface keeps the ships in place much better than any purpose-made mat I've used yet, it looks nice, and it's exactly the right size.

My Yoga mat is pink.... I shall have to rub catnip on it so it gets destroyed, then the wife can recommend I buy a new black one.

I don't know what it's soo good about the report. A heavy carrier list it's the natural counter to ackbar.

He flought well but the other player made serius mistakes.

And was a rare ackbar list. 4 mk2 or 3 + home one it's much more punishing.

Yeah the Akbar list looks a little iffy to me too.

I don't know what it's soo good about the report. A heavy carrier list it's the natural counter to ackbar.

He flought well but the other player made serius mistakes.

And was a rare ackbar list. 4 mk2 or 3 + home one it's much more punishing.

What's so good about the report was that it was well written, had good photos, and was very entertaining. Arhaedhel obviously went to a lot of effort to assemble it for our reading pleasure, and some of us greatly appreciate that.

The exact details of the game are almost secondary, though of course people will make mistakes. Are you going to second guess every battle report with the benefit of your 20/20 hindsight?

And keep in mind it's early days for Ackbar - are you so certain your suggestions are so clearly superior? Has the ultimate Ackbar list already been decided before he's officially released? 3AFs and home one mean you're running naked. Whether that's superior is debatable, and not something I'd say to blast someone's hard work.

I looked at the fact that there were four B-wing squadrons on one side and virtualy no squadrons on the other and thought 'this is going to really hurt'. You simply can't afford to let B-wings get anywhere near your capital ships especialy in large numbers and supported by 'carriers'

I don't know what it's soo good about the report. A heavy carrier list it's the natural counter to ackbar.

He flought well but the other player made serius mistakes.

And was a rare ackbar list. 4 mk2 or 3 + home one it's much more punishing.

What's so good about the report was that it was well written, had good photos, and was very entertaining. Arhaedhel obviously went to a lot of effort to assemble it for our reading pleasure, and some of us greatly appreciate that.

The exact details of the game are almost secondary, though of course people will make mistakes. Are you going to second guess every battle report with the benefit of your 20/20 hindsight?

And keep in mind it's early days for Ackbar - are you so certain your suggestions are so clearly superior? Has the ultimate Ackbar list already been decided before he's officially released? 3AFs and home one mean you're running naked. Whether that's superior is debatable, and not something I'd say to blast someone's hard work.

If it was misunderstood I was clearly talking about the battle itself becouse the tittle. The battle report it's fine but what I cared about was how to fought ackbar. And has I've said it was a heavy carrier fleet vs a rare ackbar with no squadrons.

If the writter was ofended I will give my apology. All my comments where about the stategy. Same as I'll say that the player that was at the final of worlds ( the gencon special) vs the champion lost the battle in deployment.

I don't know what it's soo good about the report. A heavy carrier list it's the natural counter to ackbar.

He flought well but the other player made serius mistakes.

And was a rare ackbar list. 4 mk2 or 3 + home one it's much more punishing.

What's so good about the report was that it was well written, had good photos, and was very entertaining. Arhaedhel obviously went to a lot of effort to assemble it for our reading pleasure, and some of us greatly appreciate that.

The exact details of the game are almost secondary, though of course people will make mistakes. Are you going to second guess every battle report with the benefit of your 20/20 hindsight?

And keep in mind it's early days for Ackbar - are you so certain your suggestions are so clearly superior? Has the ultimate Ackbar list already been decided before he's officially released? 3AFs and home one mean you're running naked. Whether that's superior is debatable, and not something I'd say to blast someone's hard work.

If it was misunderstood I was clearly talking about the battle itself becouse the tittle. The battle report it's fine but what I cared about was how to fought ackbar. And has I've said it was a heavy carrier fleet vs a rare ackbar with no squadrons.

If the writter was ofended I will give my apology. All my comments where about the stategy. Same as I'll say that the player that was at the final of worlds ( the gencon special) vs the champion lost the battle in deployment.

No worries, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt because I'm pretty sure English isn't your first language, and it's easy for intent to get lost in the translation.

As for my opponent, Patrick is a fantastic player who clobbers me more often than not. Of course the list isn't Ackbar/Home One/AF2/AF2, but how would we advance the state of the game if everybody always just played the naive "best list" and called it a day? Have you faced an Ackbar CR90 turret list yet? You will: it hits like a truck if you let it get set up, and those corvettes can be extremely difficult to pin down.

If you're looking for "how to beat Ackbar," no single game is going to answer that for you: there are many different possible Ackbar builds, and the strategy that works well against one isn't necessarily going to counter another. I would have played this game very differently if I was facing my Ackbar+Torpedo Frigates build, for example. But multiple battle reports will help the community develop tactics, and learn what works and what doesn't. And yes, against an Ackbar Christmas Tree+CR90s build with light fighters (don't forget, he did have Dash), charging in with a cloud of fighters to nuke corvettes before going for the flagship can work.

I'm not saying I've solved this game and the answer is MOAR B-WINGS (it is, but that's not what I'm saying here . Just reporting on my game for others to take whatever lessons they can.

Have you faced an Ackbar CR90 turret list yet? You will: it hits like a truck if you let it get set up, and those corvettes can be extremely difficult to pin down.

Can confirm.

Turns CR-90s into AF MK IIs that can brutalize most Imperial fleets long before they can get within striking range and will quickly be hammering your rear arcs. MC-80 flagship is tough enough to make "just kill Ackbar" a less than workable strategy.

I don't know what it's soo good about the report. A heavy carrier list it's the natural counter to ackbar.

He flought well but the other player made serius mistakes.

And was a rare ackbar list. 4 mk2 or 3 + home one it's much more punishing.

What's so good about the report was that it was well written, had good photos, and was very entertaining. Arhaedhel obviously went to a lot of effort to assemble it for our reading pleasure, and some of us greatly appreciate that.

The exact details of the game are almost secondary, though of course people will make mistakes. Are you going to second guess every battle report with the benefit of your 20/20 hindsight?

And keep in mind it's early days for Ackbar - are you so certain your suggestions are so clearly superior? Has the ultimate Ackbar list already been decided before he's officially released? 3AFs and home one mean you're running naked. Whether that's superior is debatable, and not something I'd say to blast someone's hard work.

If it was misunderstood I was clearly talking about the battle itself becouse the tittle. The battle report it's fine but what I cared about was how to fought ackbar. And has I've said it was a heavy carrier fleet vs a rare ackbar with no squadrons.

If the writter was ofended I will give my apology. All my comments where about the stategy. Same as I'll say that the player that was at the final of worlds ( the gencon special) vs the champion lost the battle in deployment.

No worries, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt because I'm pretty sure English isn't your first language, and it's easy for intent to get lost in the translation.

As for my opponent, Patrick is a fantastic player who clobbers me more often than not. Of course the list isn't Ackbar/Home One/AF2/AF2, but how would we advance the state of the game if everybody always just played the naive "best list" and called it a day? Have you faced an Ackbar CR90 turret list yet? You will: it hits like a truck if you let it get set up, and those corvettes can be extremely difficult to pin down.

If you're looking for "how to beat Ackbar," no single game is going to answer that for you: there are many different possible Ackbar builds, and the strategy that works well against one isn't necessarily going to counter another. I would have played this game very differently if I was facing my Ackbar+Torpedo Frigates build, for example. But multiple battle reports will help the community develop tactics, and learn what works and what doesn't. And yes, against an Ackbar Christmas Tree+CR90s build with light fighters (don't forget, he did have Dash), charging in with a cloud of fighters to nuke corvettes before going for the flagship can work.

I'm not saying I've solved this game and the answer is MOAR B-WINGS (it is, but that's not what I'm saying here . Just reporting on my game for others to take whatever lessons they can.

Yes!

Playing against expected strong lists e.g. GenCon special is good, but playing against experimental lists is also highly advisable. The last thing we want to do is get caught off-guard and swept off the battlefield by A-Wings