Greetings all,
I'm looking to pick your brains for a list I'm aiming to try out. After the list I'll talk through a lot of my thought process behind some of the decisions.
REBEL FLEET (398 points)
1 • MC30c Scout Frigate - Gunnery Team (76)
2 • Assault Frigate Mark II B - Gunnery Team - XI7 Turbolasers (85)
3 • Nebulon-B Escort Frigate - Raymus Antilles - Yavaris (69)
4 • CR90a Corellian Corvette - Admiral Ackbar (82)
5 • B-wing Squadron (14)
6 • B-wing Squadron (14)
7 • A-wing Squadron (11)
8 • A-wing Squadron (11)
9 • HWK-290 (12)
10 • Dash Rendar (24)
Objectives • Advanced Gunnery, Contested Outpost, Minefields
Ackbar as Commander, that's written in stone, one of the few things that is. I'm tired of flying and facing clouds of gladiators, Ackbar is kinda like a semi-permanent opening salvo, and in my experience GSDs tend to dislike opening slavo.
I included the MC30 as opposed to another AF2 because they have similar long range gunnery profiles, upgrade slots, and points costs. With ackbar the 2 ships are slinging 4x2 reds and 5x2, which is close enough to being the same, however as the enemy approaches the gunline, the MC30's blacks can kick in, which really boosts its value relative to the AF2. (Also applicable vs other ackbar conga lines, MC30 can cut across)
I've done some counter-top movements with a small and medium base conga line to see how I can mitigate the lead ship needing to go first, or getting slowed down, so I'm not too worried about that. What I'm less confident on is the ability of the MC30 to turn in at the right time to do a hit and run on someone, and whether that means it wants to be at the front or back of the 2 ship conga line.
Yavaris is to provide an amount of flexibility if I face skew lists with no or tons of squadrons.
CR90 is to provide an edge for activation advantage, and to give Ackbar a quick getaway if needed.
@398 points I'm expecting to be 2nd player a lot. My yellow and blue objectives give me a lot of control over how the battlefield shapes up. Contested outpost lends itself well to the Ackbar gunline and Yavaris B-wings.
Here at the start of wave 2 I'm expecting a lot of lists to include a large base ship, and generally if you bring a large ships you're only bringing 2 other ships, or you really cut into fighter support and bring 3 + large + minimal squadrons. That's a scenario I'm ok with. 4 ships of my own means that against 3 ships lists I can stall long enough as first or second player.
I expect most of the time my opponent will end up taking advanced gunnery, especially rebel players who bring an MC80. In that case my plan is to make yavaris the objective ship, hopefully drawing some fire from the gunnery team ships. Plus the bonus-to-risk thing pans out best that way too. Advanced Gunnery on top of gunnery teams is nice, but sub-optimal. I'm not putting it on the flagship. Could lead to some great Yavaris activations between bomber double-taps and a ship double-tap, either out the front or side since they're pretty similar at that point.
The goal is to have a flexible fighter wing, A's to intercept and lock down squads. Hawk+b-wings to ensure successful bombing runs. Dash to help out in either group because my one game with him he was awesome. (he took out tycho, 3 y-wings by himself, and dropped 3 damage on ships). If fighters are dropped, I want it to be an even number since odd numbers of fighters are not helpful for deployment turns.
I'd really like to squeeze in Foresight on the MC30, but I'm not sure how. Not sure that giving up XI7 is worth it.
I'm also waffling on Minefields vs superior positions. Both look like great choices, but I've been burned in the past on superior positions.
Thoughts?