Musings on Ackbar and how I wish he would've been

By corlinjewell, in Star Wars: Armada

You obviously havent played vs trc90s

So were talking six (?) TrC90's.

Ackbar gives a bonus of 12 dice assuming side arcs only. And lets point out this bonus is actually only 6 dice over what could have been achieved from the front arc.

So six bonus red dice for 38points.

Yup thats overpowered? 6.3 pts per red dice.

This thread is about AF and Scout Frigates which gain 4 dice out of their already potent side arcs, meaning if you max it you can get 16 bonus dice for 2.4pts each. (yes its leaves you woefully exposed elsewhere)

No, that's not what I'm talking about. I would explain more butI'm on travel on my phone. Can someone assist?

Actually, my red dice completely flop about once every 1.5 games. Like all 5 5 blanks, or 4 blanks 2 accuracies. Or 1 hit out of 6 dice.

Unfortunately, that means that the other 10 or so shots of 5 dice were mediocre or good.

Weird. I wonder what's wrong with your Ackbar players.

I feel like we've been discussing ackbar nonstop. I'd really like to see some new other ships.

Perhaps wave2 has caused serious min/max-ing. The other crappy list i see is mass squadrons.... which is utterly boring to me also.

I want to see capital ships! ARGH.

This was my whole point from the beginning. I never said he was so overpowered that I wanted to flip the table over in rage. I wanted to see more variety. Ackbar pairs best with the assault frigates with gunnery teams (don't try and tell me otherwise). That ship was already dominating Rebel lists everywhere (yes, I realize your meta may be different, but I'm talking overall). And Ackbar just makes that strategy better and makes it an easy button if you want to go down that route (not saying that this is his only strategy by any means). I wanted to see an admiral that changed things up and made unusual strategies viable. Something you would have to plan for and could strip away with shrewd planning. There isn't a super good way to mitigate Ackbar's strengths as he is getting those two extra red dice pretty much always (yes superior positioning and killing him quickly are options, but isn't that the point of the game anyway?). I like using all of the ships, and as I've said on the Raider threads, getting into close range with those little guys (glads too) is a death sentence with Ackbar. And yes, I've gotten pretty good at denying his side-arcs for A TURN. But then things move and guess what, he can shoot me now. This is particularly annoying when he doesn't even have to choose between popping some damage on my big bruisers (VSDs and ISDs) and taking out my little guys (Glads and Raiders) due to Gunnery teams. And yes, mass squadrons is his weakness, but I don't want to have pigeon-hole my list building when I'm coming up with a tournament list in order to deal with Ackbar and then run into opponents that are using the other guys.

And for those telling me that red dice roll blanks, yes I know that is a possibility. I've also seen statisticians post threads about average damage and such, and the key to doing more damage is rolling more dice.

And for those saying that you are paying 6.3 points (or whatever) per red dice, do I need to remind everyone that people were paying for enhanced armaments at 10 points per red dice before he came out? I liked that card, because it made you have to make a choice since it was taking up a valuable turbolaser slot and was your ship's modification. These choices enhance variety because a lot of people are going to say that those costs outweigh the benefits and a lot of people are going to take them anyway.

All in all, I think the change that makes the most sense and the one that could easily be implemented without changing his points cost is to deny its use with gunnery teams. Would I have liked to have seen something I thought was more interesting from him, of course (this i why I proposed those changes in the first place), but what's done is done.

Tl;dr is he too powerful? No. Is he going to make stop playing the game? Absolutely and utterly not. Did he make a strategy that I personally thought was boring and stale harder to stray from if you are going for a win? Yes

Tl;dr is he too powerful? No. Is he going to make stop playing the game? Absolutely and utterly not. Did he make a strategy that I personally thought was boring and stale harder to stray from if you are going for a win? Yes

Sounds like your whole problem would be fixed by just not playing him, then. If he's not OP, and you feel like using him forces you into a play style you think is boring, use any of the other commanders.

Tl;dr is he too powerful? No. Is he going to make stop playing the game? Absolutely and utterly not. Did he make a strategy that I personally thought was boring and stale harder to stray from if you are going for a win? Yes

Sounds like your whole problem would be fixed by just not playing him, then. If he's not OP, and you feel like using him forces you into a play style you think is boring, use any of the other commanders.

Or coming up with different build concepts. I have had tons of fun with Dodonna recently!

True. I'm mostly an imperial player. I was more referring to my opponents and potentially what I expect to see in coming tourneys

Is anyone else having problems matching the firepower of the ISD's without Ackbar?

Is anyone else having problems matching the firepower of the ISD's without Ackbar?

Not really. I have blown up and seen ISD's blown up by non ackbar lists. You just have to use the Wave 1 tactics again.

Is anyone else having problems matching the firepower of the ISD's without Ackbar?

Yes. And I love it!

I think that's a huge part of the fun of playing Rebels in the first place is not being able to go toe to toe with the Imperial Starfleet. That's not what we do (usually). We don't engage them on their terms, we find other ways to win.

This is how it has been for us since Wave 0: you don't charge your CR90 up the nose of a VSD-1 and sit there until it's killed you--you find some other tactic. Circle around behind him; out-activate him and use initiative to make hit-and-runs; play objectives; maybe you try a hair-raising Hail Mary Ackbar slash.

Ackbar gives you the option of running heavy rebel fleets that CAN go toe to toe with Imperial ships of the line. Much as Ozzel gives the Empire the option to play sneaky and dodgy tactics that have been a rebel hallmark until now.

If you don't like either of those options, don't play those admirals. If you don't like playing against those admirals, play their counters to force a change in the meta.

Sorry, rant over. :)

Is anyone else having problems matching the firepower of the ISD's without Ackbar?

Not when I hit my godlike Salvation/Raymus/Slaved turrets rolls. She just sits in the back and lets the other ships soak up the defense tokens and then drops the hammer. I really love this build with home one but it can be unbelievably fickle. Really waiting for the game when I snipe a raider at long range.

Besides that you have to read your opponents list and how he plays it. If he gets too aggressive with his ISD almost any list can charge in and focus it down in two turns and he might not be able to make you pay that much in return.

Edited by Gorthaur25

Is anyone else having problems matching the firepower of the ISD's without Ackbar?

Yes. And I love it!

I think that's a huge part of the fun of playing Rebels in the first place is not being able to go toe to toe with the Imperial Starfleet. That's not what we do (usually). We don't engage them on their terms, we find other ways to win.

This is how it has been for us since Wave 0: you don't charge your CR90 up the nose of a VSD-1 and sit there until it's killed you--you find some other tactic. Circle around behind him; out-activate him and use initiative to make hit-and-runs; play objectives; maybe you try a hair-raising Hail Mary Ackbar slash.

Ackbar gives you the option of running heavy rebel fleets that CAN go toe to toe with Imperial ships of the line. Much as Ozzel gives the Empire the option to play sneaky and dodgy tactics that have been a rebel hallmark until now.

If you don't like either of those options, don't play those admirals. If you don't like playing against those admirals, play their counters to force a change in the meta.

Sorry, rant over. :)

This was very well said.

A huge part of this game is how different admirals change the play of the list completely. Find one admiral isn't quite working for you, try another.