Went to a great store in Lafayette , IN called Sage's Shoppe on Saturday for a store championship. It was well run, a great store and tons of fun players and opponents.

14 total players travelling from up to two hours distance, so pulled a nice geography.

(some of this is just recollection so may be slightly off)

8 Rebel players with, I believe 7 Ackbar. The imperial players represented a variety of admirals.

I ended up with 30 total tournament points and 1186 total MOV.

My list was:

Ackbar

2x Assault Frigates with identical loads of Boosted comms, ECM and gunnery team

1x Corvette with Raymus, Acbar and Tantive

3x Y wings

2x X wings

1x A wing

Dutch

Jan

Han SoLo

My objectives were: Precision Strike, Fire Lanes and SUperior positions

My opponents in order were:

Dual ISDs loaded with Motti and four of the "Hero" squadrons (Boba and Bossk...and others)

then...

Ozzel with Both named Glads, Vic carrier and Raider and six squadrons with howl and mithel

then...

Ackbar standard with Home one and 2x Ass frigates.

My losses were 1x y, 2x X, 1x A, and Jan. No ship losses.

Played Fire lanes twice and Supereior positions once. Generated over 100 points each match from the objectives.

Without a detailed battle report, suffice to say a couple points

1) Side slip defilading away from blue range is HUGE

2) Obstacle placement in fire lanes can mean the difference of a hundred points easily

3) Running away is acceptable.....as turn five and six can decide the game

4) Han Solo is a GOD. The guaranteed double tap with no response is simply huge...REALLY huge...like, game winning huge. Did I say huge?

Had three awesome opponents that were all great sports and well skilled at their fleet control.

This is such a fun game....

Grand! Love seeing that the game can pull from such a large area!

So much Snackbar though! Ugh. I hate everything about his fishy face.

"...and well skilled at their fleet control."

Thats not how I would interpret three 10-0's on the day.

Pardons, the bridge troll in me rears its ugly head now and again.

Ill be good from now on, promise!

/crossedfingers

Hahaha!

My opinion is two opponents can BOTH be well skilled at controlling their fleets...and ONE still loses. Does not mean one was not skilled. I had a few good turns with some close calls to death. This game is interesting how there is a very quick cascade failure of a fleet once a ship dies. I noticed this in all three games. It was a dance of sorts until one ship died. Then, the dominoes fell quickly. In fact, in all three games, first ship death to total fleet loss was always just one turn.

Regardless, they were fun opponents

AND...I agree about Akbar. I really wanted to play him heavily for a bit to see if there was a lynchpin failure to him. In other words, I am trying to defeat him by playing him. As of now after 20 or so games with him, I am not seeing a downside.....unfortunately. Albeit, the other REB admirals have their place...Akbar just lends a lot to the fleet.

defilading

Fantastic verbiage, sir.

I'll chime in as Mike's 2nd round opponent. I know I had a plan that looked good on paper, but I failed to execute, namely I tossed it out the window by turn 2 and derped in a big, big way. Rookie error, I know. Oh well, that's called learning

I think the biggest thing that gave Mike's opponents fits was that it breaks the mold of a "traditional" ackbar list. In general ackbar lists tend to be very ship heavy, with only a token squadron screen. Therefore my usual counters to ackbar, bombers + intel or a diving Demolisher with back-to-back activations don't work. Using a ship to block the conga line is also a bad plan because precision strike means that a ship or those bombers will just flip that card up (better hope its not a card you get to flip back down after resolving, like the one that kills your shields)

This fleet sacrifices a bit on direct capital ship punishment in favor of covering a "usual" ackbar weakness and making up the difference with squadrons.

Having ruminated the last few days I think this list might have more trouble as 1st player, both because ackbar tends to prefer 2nd player, and because then the objective might be less favorable. As someone who had to select an objective, they were all bad, there wasn't one that was only ok, they were all bad, especially because of the volume of squadrons.

I was surprised at the general prevalence of ackbar, and Mike pointed out that he's the easiest to get the biggest effect from, and in a tournament, one less thing to try to orchestrate is important.

4) Han Solo is a GOD. The guaranteed double tap with no response is simply huge...REALLY huge...like, game winning huge. Did I say huge?

You mean like Demolisher? Han goes last in Turn 1 and then gets to go first in Turn 2? What do you mean by guaranteed "double tap."

Han can only activate once per round unless you mean with with Adar Tallon?

4) Han Solo is a GOD. The guaranteed double tap with no response is simply huge...REALLY huge...like, game winning huge. Did I say huge?

You mean like Demolisher? Han goes last in Turn 1 and then gets to go first in Turn 2? What do you mean by guaranteed "double tap."

Han can only activate once per round unless you mean with with Adar Tallon?

That is exactly it.

He goes as the last squadron as part of the Squadron Phase. Because he has Rogue, he can Move and Shoot. (Tap One.)

Then, at the start of the Ship Phase, before any Ships have activated and moved, he can use his "Han Shoots First" ability to move and Shoot, or rather, Shoot and Move (Tap Two.). As because he moved+shot at the squadron phase, he's already at a target.

Ergo, Tap One, Tap Two, Guaranteed Double Tap.

There is no way of stopping it - unless you are able to lock him down with multiple squadrons before he activates at the end of the ship phase...

And then, all you're doing is stopping a double tap against a ship. There's nothing stopping him from double-tapping a squadron at that point.

No Adar Needed.

Mikemcmann what was your fleet build total? I am assuming your running 400 pts. If so where people opting to go first and playing your objectives?

Just as Ransburger said. (I was his padawan three months ago with my first games) . This list needs to go second and maximize its objectives. He was the opponent I knew I'd likely face and was nervous to face the sith master

And just as Dras has said. Han Solo goes last then first. Even though not a bomber, he killed two ships with the sneaky double tap and almost killed Ransburgers demolished that way too

@rottenreason - build total exactly 400. My thinking was to maximize my points as I wanted second player anyhow and most tend to bid for first.

That being said, I don't think it would be incredibly hampered by first player. There will likely be one objective I could choose that'd be ok. AND going first would make winning the squad fight easier with the Dutch alpha strike

This is both encouraging and terrifying. On one hand, I feel more confident running less ships if thy have good squadron support. On the other hand, the thought of you Rebel scum flying around in your bombers with your Ackbar enhanced frigates makes my knees slightly wobbly.

4) Han Solo is a GOD. The guaranteed double tap with no response is simply huge...REALLY huge...like, game winning huge. Did I say huge?

You mean like Demolisher? Han goes last in Turn 1 and then gets to go first in Turn 2? What do you mean by guaranteed "double tap."

Han can only activate once per round unless you mean with with Adar Tallon?

That is exactly it.

He goes as the last squadron as part of the Squadron Phase. Because he has Rogue, he can Move and Shoot. (Tap One.)

Then, at the start of the Ship Phase, before any Ships have activated and moved, he can use his "Han Shoots First" ability to move and Shoot, or rather, Shoot and Move (Tap Two.). As because he moved+shot at the squadron phase, he's already at a target.

Ergo, Tap One, Tap Two, Guaranteed Double Tap.

There is no way of stopping it - unless you are able to lock him down with multiple squadrons before he activates at the end of the ship phase...

And then, all you're doing is stopping a double tap against a ship. There's nothing stopping him from double-tapping a squadron at that point.

No Adar Needed.

It works also because he has so many squadrons (9, I think I counted), which you may need to get that last activation in the squadron phase. They're also all really beefy, even without Jan, unless you fight the A-wing... which has its own downside. Han is probably the most dangerous piece, but you also don't want Dutch flying around (especially if you have Rogues), or X's laying into your TIEs, or Jan handing out Braces, so it creates a prioritization issue for the enemy (and when Han is prioritized, you need at least three squadrons to end up on him, or he'll just Grit away...).

I had a similar list with Ackbar, two AFIIs, a Tantive token-passing Corvette with Raymus, and 10 squadrons (featuring Han) that I very much enjoyed. The flexibility he gives you is incredible. Now if I could just get Adar into the mix, for a triple-crash... If Yavaris is on call, too, Han gets crazy.

Exactly and well explained.

People discounted the toughness of the squads. With most being five and six or more hull, they just hung around. Jan tossing braces meant they just...lived

The tag team of an xwing and ywing plus Jan throwing a brace meant that my squads wrecked whatever they encountered and came out the other side ready to bomb.

Also, everything having either bomber, or black anti ship meant every squad doubled as a capital ship killer.

Going second, unless my opponent had like 11 or more squads , meant Han always went last. He chilled by Jan during the turn so he could always leap away at the end of the squad phase.

The best was using Dutch on boba...activating him plus damage....then Han hitting him...then finishing him off at the top of the turn. I felt bad, sort of, but it was great seeing 26 points literally go completely unused.basically Han and Dutch could make certain no "uber" hero ever got do much.

Not a broken or perfect list by an stretch....but definitely tough. There are certainly DIRECT counters (like 16 tie fighters) but I feel those would fail generally speaking trying to direct counter...

This is both encouraging and terrifying. On one hand, I feel more confident running less ships if thy have good squadron support. On the other hand, the thought of you Rebel scum flying around in your bombers with your Ackbar enhanced frigates makes my knees slightly wobbly.

Playing both factions, I think that this is a specificity of the Rebels because their squadrons are heavier on a 1v1 basis compared to the Empire. What makes a good carrier is not only the number of activation he can push, how he buffs his squadrons but also what kind of squadrons he activates. A Rebel squadron, aside from the Y-Wing, will always have a target as long as it is in range of something. That, and the Rebels' reliance on red dice range and broadsides really increasing their threat range (and reducing the need for extremely precise maneuvering to project damage) really allow them to be generous with their squadron commands, or spread one or two squadron activations within their command stacks without losing too much efficiency, or can afford to fly their squadorns without many activations.

Even CR90s, MC30 or Neb Support benefit from having some form of fighter escort with banked squadron command.

On the other hand, Imperial ships and squadrons really rely on their commands to be effective : to get into position, to properly regenerate shields/hulls at the right time (while Rebels reliance on shields that cost less to repair makes them need Engineering commands slightly less when placed in the same situation as the Imperial ships), to get the most of their individual fighters through bulk activation from their generous squadron commands.

The problem lies therefore in having multiple efficient commands competing against one another on a large command stack : You plan 3 turns ahead, but if you're trying to do multiple things you may soon realize that you've planned the wrong commands at the wrong time in a quest to take advantage of the fact that Imperial ships can perform multiple roles.

Imperial Fighter escorts for every ship are interesting but I only see them work with 2 Commanders :

- Tarkin so you can use the liaisons to either activate an escort to protect you, either switch to repair/nav commands for a primarily carrier ship.

- Motti because the extra hull will help to make sure you have to plan less engineering commands and can focus on your squadron commands every turn (or one more turn).

Interesting thoughts.

I must be different. My dedicated carriers do NOTHING but squadron commands...all game. (Unless the number of squadrons catastrophically drops)

I find using the squads efficiently in the ship phase far surpasses the stray non squad command. The only command I'd ever issue a carrier is a nav command. And usually do it turn one just for the speed control token.

Imo, if you make a carrier...it NEEDS to be one the whole game or the carrier buffs become wasted points. The downside being that commands are predictable by your opponent . My opponents didn't really even need me to reveal....they ew y command stack

That's precisely the point They know you're going to spam squadron Commands, so they know you will at some point increase or decrease speed by 1 with the Nav token you banked and that you won't repair for a couple of turns

But, because of their long range and marginal performance increase at closer range, and also due to the fact that they have more shields, they are both carriers and direct ship to ship combat, while Imperials have to be dedicated even though they have profiles of generalists

For instance, the AFMK2 A has a total of 12 shields, which is the same as an ISD and the same amount of Engineering points. It can tank on shields as long as an ISD can (a little less due to having only 1 redirect), while still pushing similar amounts of damage from his shots and his squadrons. On top of that, the optimal range being longer, you're less worried about the number of ships that can bring their weapons to bear on the AFMK2.

With the VSD/ISD it's a bit different. Due to having 2 lower shields, to have the same tank it has to effectively plan one more engineering command than an AFMK2. Things get a little worse considering the fact that since you want to get into closer range, you'll be exposing yourself to more attacks, so Engineering commands become more valuable, especially on a ship with a lower shield value. And the more engineering commands you spent so that you can actively remain in the fight, the less you spend on squadron commands.

The corollary is true as well : the more your spend on squadron commands from a dedicated Vic carrier, the less you can spend on Engineering Commands. So it makes your tankability much less effective.

Whereas, an AFMK2 doesn't need as many dedicated ship to ship commands (Engineering, Nav) to keep its efficiency against ships high (you don't lose 50% of your main arc's firepower if you decide to play it safe at range and throw the fighters), even on a MK2 A. The VSD on the other hand can both command squadrons or be in the thick of things, but it needs to choose one or the other in its setup and its commands.

Finally, Carrier buffs act differently between Rebels and Imperials. Aside from Boosted Comms, I found that all carrier specific upgrades are overkill on Rebel Fighters (but that's just my analysis), because I don't really see the difference between 5 dice AS from X-Wings or 4 dice : in both cases I know that unless I get extremely lucky, I'll have to throw 2 squadrons to kill a TIE Fighter. And the cost of an extra squadron through EH is much higher on Rebels (18 points with a X-Wing vs 13 points with a TIE F). Similarily, if I do a Bomber Wing carrier for the Imperials, I will never ever go without Flight Controllers

Just my 2c