I gotta say, if you can get the maneuver to work. Pasting all the wimpy front guns toward the side... awesome idea. I'd do that if I was as good as Ackbar. =P

Best Ackbar lists currently?

Best Ackbar lists currently?

the ones with Ackbar in them

Looking at this from a Rebel player perspective, I'd say Ackbar is a nigh on necessary addition to our armoury.

Facing one, two, possibly three ISDs spewing out eight dice to their front (without any upgrades) is quite intimidating. Not to mention it's hurtling about at speed three with a bunch of cheap bombers, Rhymer and maybe Boba Fett, in tow.

If my Rebs can add an ISD to their ranks I'll totally let my Ackbar card moonlight for the darkside

I, also, disagree with your thematic interpretations.

Yes, a ship destroyed is not "blown up." Do you realize the amount of energy it would take to actually "destroy" a Star Destroyer? Wasteful amounts in an actual battle for sure.

Ackbar doesn't put more guns on the ship. He commands them better. I especially like Blail Blerg's points, as it's something I've though of a lot of how the "arcs" work: the guns aren't "on the front" or "on the side" they're all over. And when you fire with the front arc you're using guns that CAN fire to the side as well...even imagine your ship having 8 arcs, and the corner ones have options to which arc they are dedicated. So focusing more of your guns from the "front/side" and "front/back" arcs so they are on the side would literally give you more guns to shoot with...of course that's excluding him giving good/inspirational orders on where to fire for more damage.

That said, Ackbar is beatable...for sure. He's, finally, a scary admiral for rebels. Imps have had screed for a while; their scariest admiral I feel (not strongest, just noticeable direct hurt). So while Mon Mothma is pretty **** strong, she's not as immediately threatening as Ackbar is with his raw 2 dice.

I would def like to play against this corvette swarm list people keep throwing around; as I feel it has some obvious weaknesses that can be exploited with any well-rounded list.

I've faced 3 or 4 iterations of it, winning every game against it with varying levels of success, and different builds. It definitely has weaknesses--significant, glaring ones.

The one I played yesterday (being the one I most specifically remember) was a heavily-upgraded Home One with three naked CR90A's and 6-8 rebel fighters centered on Wedge and Dutch. In this case I was paying my list from the Vassal Tournament, so while Ackbar is my admiral, it's got more similarities with an Imperial flanker list than the common Ackbar list. Lightly upgraded MC80 Home One, and two torpedo shrimp with OE/TRC/ACM. I just charge into that front arc at speed 4 and pull the trigger till it goes click. Got lots of free pot shots on corvettes in passing, which helped.

That's all well and good, but Rebel on Rebel action doesn't really tell us much about Imp fights with Admiral Turbo-guppy.

As a loyal commander for the only legitimate government in the galaxy, I'm more concerned with what we can reliably do to throw Chief-terrorist-in-charge Fishfingers in the oven.

Imo, if you're taking a VSD, you're taking T-beams

it compensates for their shite maneuverability very **** well

the caveat, however, is that t-beams need to be present in multiples. Just one will be negated by a navigate command, while two-three will hammer a ship down to speed 1 and it can only go up to speed 2 without outside influence (raymus, ozzel etc.) which is the VSD's top speed

if you don't have two vsds in a list, the ISD could also use a T-beam

I don't think they're worth it on small ships, however, because they can't lock down Afmk2s

T-beam VSDs work quite well with Rogue, since those free up the command dial for spammed navigates. Plus, if you have around four (which is the max I can fit with an ISD-2 + 2 VSD), you can always surprise Squadron with the ISD-2

The only problem with Tractor Beams is that they are so expensive to get your hands on. I'd love to have a full set for an ISD and 2 VSDs, but that's $150 msrp.

As someone else pointed out, ackbar would be far worse in the 600 point game the op is describing. I think he disproportionally scales with fleet size. Other commanders do this as well, but I think ackbar does it to a greater degree.

I'm thinking massed fighters might take Ackbar apart, it's something I want to try next opportunity I have (and once I have my second ISD).

I'm thinking massed fighters might take Ackbar apart, it's something I want to try next opportunity I have (and once I have my second ISD).

Can confirm: it does. Just make sure you have Boosted Comms to make sure you can stay back far enough from his support ships while hitting the fish himself.

Raider pocket carriers would probably work too, at range with those two evades, but I haven't tried that yet.

I'm thinking massed fighters might take Ackbar apart, it's something I want to try next opportunity I have (and once I have my second ISD).

Can confirm: it does. Just make sure you have Boosted Comms to make sure you can stay back far enough from his support ships while hitting the fish himself.

Raider pocket carriers would probably work too, at range with those two evades, but I haven't tried that yet.

I wanna see these lists!!!!

I'm thinking massed fighters might take Ackbar apart, it's something I want to try next opportunity I have (and once I have my second ISD).

Can confirm: it does. Just make sure you have Boosted Comms to make sure you can stay back far enough from his support ships while hitting the fish himself.

Raider pocket carriers would probably work too, at range with those two evades, but I haven't tried that yet.

I wanna see these lists!!!!

I hope I don't regret this...

Hate Cloud (400)

Precision Strike - Fire Lanes - Minefields

ISD-I // Tarkin / Flight Controllers / Boosted Comms / Expanded Hangar Bay

ISD-I // Flight Controllers / Boosted Comms / Expanded Hangar Bay

5x TIE/LN Fighter

3x TIE/Sa Bomber

2x TIE Advanced

Vader

Painclouds (400)

Precision Strike - Hyperspace Assault - Superior Positions

VSD-I // Tarkin / Captain Needa / Flight Controllers / Boosted Comms

VSD-I // Flight Controllers / Boosted Comms

VSD-I // Flight Controllers / Boosted Comms

Vader

3x TIE/LN Fighter

2x TIE/X1 Advanced

3x TIE/sa Bomber

Mauler Mithel

Vader

I'm thinking massed fighters might take Ackbar apart, it's something I want to try next opportunity I have (and once I have my second ISD).

Can confirm: it does. Just make sure you have Boosted Comms to make sure you can stay back far enough from his support ships while hitting the fish himself.

Raider pocket carriers would probably work too, at range with those two evades, but I haven't tried that yet.

I wanna see these lists!!!!

I hope I don't regret this...

Hate Cloud (400)

Precision Strike - Fire Lanes - Minefields

ISD-I // Tarkin / Flight Controllers / Boosted Comms / Expanded Hangar Bay

ISD-I // Flight Controllers / Boosted Comms / Expanded Hangar Bay

5x TIE/LN Fighter

3x TIE/Sa Bomber

2x TIE Advanced

Vader

Painclouds (400)

Precision Strike - Hyperspace Assault - Superior Positions

VSD-I // Tarkin / Captain Needa / Flight Controllers / Boosted Comms

VSD-I // Flight Controllers / Boosted Comms

VSD-I // Flight Controllers / Boosted Comms

Vader

3x TIE/LN Fighter

2x TIE/X1 Advanced

3x TIE/sa Bomber

Mauler Mithel

Vader

Kinda surprised to not see Admiral Cheerios and/or Major Street-poet in those lists.

"Quantity has a Quality of its own". What I feel I'm missing the most out of this list is counter of some kind. At 400 points I'm probably going second, which means fighters have a good chance of being jumped.

Kinda surprised to not see Admiral Cheerios and/or Major Street-poet in those lists.

I think this will have a good shot at killing Ackbar lists. But pray you don't run into squadrons/bomber heavy lists.

Fleet Summary Page (395 of 400 pts)

You want fast ships, not slow ships.

In the very least your VSDs are going to suffer 1-2 rounds of getting fired at before your black dice become effective, even with tractor beams slowing targets down.

Also, fighters.

I'm seriously thinking that Tractor Beams might be a very reliable answer to congo-lines in general, but I haven't seen many people play them.

I know that it gets comprised my the likes of Ozzel and nav commands, but if you're leaning abreast/abeam to shoot, skipping a nav command might be all that's needed to stop the line.

I personally haven't had much trouble with conga lines.. they are extremely obvious in terms of where they're going, and it presents the enemy to you one at a time.

Now, I don't like the Ackbar effect (add two dice is kind of Wizkids level of inspired.. not, in other words.. it could have been something much more interesting but we are where we are)

He is though very expensive..

And yes the imperial strategy is now centred on being in blue range for the triangles and black for everything else.

With Ackbar on the table they will lose the long range fight in terms of damage output, but their big ships can take the hits.

The ISD and VSD really need a defensive upgrade now, more or less mandatory otherwise they are huge gambles.

My game against Doobleg showed me that "predictability" of ackbar conga lines...of course I was dumb and didn't quite realize the weakness at the time.

I think the more mobile lists with options will fair better in the long run. I'm actually impressed in that I think the way Armada is designed, the profile of the MC-80 and other rebel ships, and the text of Ackbars card: FFG has expertly created a situation in which the famed (in EU at least) Ackbar slash is actually one of the best tactics to pull off with him and Home One.

Whenever I do a rebel list with Ackbar in an MC-80 I plan on diving dead-center and pounding each half of the enemy fleet with some variant of ship/squadron depending on the terrain and deployment. I suggest it to my brother every time he builds his rebel list, as it helps to bypass the front-arc deadzone and Achilles heel of the MC-80 imo.

I'm just glad the Rebels have a "powerhouse" admiral that brings the threat level of the faction up a few notches, even when he's not taken. Helps with parity of the factions I feel.

I had so much fun pulling an Ackbar Slash with a Nav Token'd AFMK-II that decided to break out of the Conga and hit both a Gladiator and an ISD that was bearing down on them... Actually sitting there and going... "Holy Crap. I have an Ackbar slash opportunity" and then pulling it off was really exciting.

AFMK-IIs are amazing warships. They might looks fugly as sin, but they fly like butter and shoot like chocolate (esp with ackbar)

Honestly the A/F MKII is the best well-rounded ship in the game. Ackbar pushes a good ship to disgusting levels, if that A/F happens to have a Gunnery team and something like XI7s or enhanced armament.

I had so much fun pulling an Ackbar Slash with a Nav Token'd AFMK-II that decided to break out of the Conga and hit both a Gladiator and an ISD that was bearing down on them... Actually sitting there and going... "Holy Crap. I have an Ackbar slash opportunity" and then pulling it off was really exciting.

I once did an ackbar slash with my entire fleet. CR first, then a Shrimp, then a AF, and finally a NEB.

My opponent lost it. And by it i mean his marbles.

And every slash was accompanied by firepower.