CR90B and admiral is 69points. If you kill it, you earn 69pts in victory points. Thats the trade. I would quite happily send a CR90A with TRC's or a MC30 to do it, if I can spare them from the main fight.

I don't think either of those can kill it. It can start speed 1, and spam navigates, you get long range, evade most of the damage, you get closer, and its suddenly speed 3 and going the other way and speed 4 the turn after. When a corvette isn't interested in doing any damage, it is very difficult to kill. I personally don't think 'hope the opponent is bad' is a good strategy.

Yes 69 points if (somehow) you kill it, but the rest of the board isn't 320 vs 400, its 360 vs 400. Thats an advantage, but you still have to deal with Rieek.

Last move / first move. Use your first player advantage.

You can at the very least cripple a corvette by doing that, no matter what you use.

Come on now, you used the "brainless" word. Own up to it.

I still claim that players take Rieekan because they have a (clever?) plan: to use his ability to get the most out of their ships, squadrons and upgrades.

Motti...he's pretty dull though. And Ackbar...broadsides and gunnery teams...really creative. Should I go on with the other admirals?

My point is: each admiral encourages you to play in (usually one of several) ways. Rieekan's ability is far from the most brainless one.

Yes I did use the word brainless, you are correct.

Some Rieek player's do have clever plans too.

Motti's ability is certainly very plain too. I don't think it really influences playstyle as much as (if at all) as Rieek though.

Demolisher and Rhymer are annoying, I really dislike their warping of the game mechanics, but, its just one ship/squadron. When they die, they die.

Riekan though... He encourages some really brainless play.

"What's that, you've outmanoeuvred me, and my ship is about to go down? I better activate it first to make the most of it before its destroyed- oh wait, nevermind I'll priotise something else, and just drive it into you later/onto an asteroid for free victory points."

I'm worried he might be even better with these presumably cheaper new unique squadrons coming out.

Brainless? That's harsh, and from everything I've seen, and I've played and played against a LOT of Riekaan, he requires much more planning and strategic play. The opposite of brainless? Your example of being outmaneuvered is what I would classify as the opponent playing poorly against Riekaan.

As far as the topic goes, Riekaan's existence helps keep certain strong builds in check.

@thecactusman17 have you ever played Rieekan? Because if you havent then I dont feel you have a leg to stand on for any of your comments and this just sounds like more the belly aching that I hear from players who get beat a lot by a particular build.

Rieekan is not easy to play and master and his playstyle many times promotes you sacrificing ships or squadrons to win. Which means that for him to be effective you many times need to lose points to win which wont win you big tournaments. I know you dont have to do that to win but that is what ends up happening many times for players using Rieekan. I really like him because just the threat of what he can do is enough to feint opponents into making mistakes.

Demolisher and Rhymer are annoying, I really dislike their warping of the game mechanics, but, its just one ship/squadron. When they die, they die.

Riekan though... He encourages some really brainless play.

"What's that, you've outmanoeuvred me, and my ship is about to go down? I better activate it first to make the most of it before its destroyed- oh wait, nevermind I'll priotise something else, and just drive it into you later/onto an asteroid for free victory points."

I'm worried he might be even better with these presumably cheaper new unique squadrons coming out.

When the new wave Admirals came out everyone was all about Ackbar and, as someone else said, the complaints were all about him too. I deliberately picked an Admiral that barely anyone locally seemed to be playing and who looked quirky.

I lost more than I won.

However after tweaking my build and tactics over a series of tournaments I eventually found something that worked for me. I still couldn't win tournaments (there's always something that tripped me up) but for the first time I went in with a strong game plan and on setup I knew what every single piece's job was. I actually felt in control of those games and had my proudest victories in them.

Rieekan is no 'easy mode'. Perhaps it's unusual for imperial players to feel like they're on the receiving end of a game-changing mechanic when they've had so many for so long (demo, rhymer, SO much dice manipulation, plus all those f***ing scattering their squadrons).

As Ginkapo has expounded thoroughly, you just need to adapt your tactics to fight him, the same as many other threats.

Rieekan definitely isn't OP. He's definitely strong, but not OP. I usually play rebels and have used Rieekan a lot since he came out. Sometimes I wished I had a different admiral, since they would have kept my ships alive in the first place, but other games when that one hull Yavaris gets obliterated, you are sooo thankful for Rieekan! But it's not like he is my default admiral, it all depends on what works for my fleet (unlike Demolisher I might add, that goes into any fleet with a GSD).

I've also played against Rieekan a good deal in tournaments, and I don't believe I've lost to him yet. Some games were closer than others 5-5, 6-4; but others I have won 9-1, 10-0. For example, at the FFG Regionals I played two Rieekan fleets with my DeMSU. I tabled one and won Intel Sweep plus half of the other fleet. Both games were 9-1 I believe. I didn't get a chance to target the flagship right away, since clever players do all they can to protect it, however, I changed up my game to target ships who already activated and watched my exit vectors, just like Ginkapo is talking about. It just takes careful play to beat Rieekan.

I wish I never used the word brainless.

I just meant I can outplay a Rieek and he still does what he wants that turn, and thats not fun for me.

I would describe myself as a Brainless Rieekan player.

I used to use Mon Mothma with Nebulons but the enemy would usually accuracy the evade (as I had 2 braces so little point closing down one of them) so I got little use out of the admiral.

Rieekan was my next attempt as it is a defensive admiral for the same points. I use him as insurance mainly and will usually select first player if I am given the choice. I don't plan to ram or blast & die but is nice to say "I stab at thee" even after a ship goes down. The squadron benefits appeal but the zombie Wedge situation has only occurred in two games.

Can we start from a position of objectiveness and positivity rather than disgust and negativity please? Instead of how to nerf Rieekan, lets first look at how Rieekan impacts on the game and whether there are tricks we can play to take away his power:

1) Squadron Game

Rieekan allows rebel aces to remain alive till the status phase. This has benefits in making sure they all get to activate and get at least one last shot.

1A) Zombie Escorts

The major beneficiary of RIeekan within the squads are Luke and Wedge. They dont just gain the benefit of being able to fire after their death, they continue to absorb damage and prevent the enemy from hunting their friends.

Who does this affect? This has a big impact on alpha striking squadron builds. The archetype of this is Howl, Mauler, Soontir, Flight Controllered Tie Interceptors. Its designed to hit first and hit hard, taking out squads before they can respond. Zombie Escorts is a hard counter to this, as Wedge should be positioned such that he will be take the brunt of the attack.

What can we do to mitigate this? Well first up, why are we attacking the zombie squads in the first place? Alpha strike players have a tendency to throw their squads at the start of turn two to get the initiative in the squadron battle. Clearly this isnt going to work, so why are we attacking Rieekan squads?

Is our aim to kill squadrons and earn victory points this way? If so why are we doing this if the situation isnt beneficial? Can we wait until we can avoid the escort and kill other squads instead? Will delaying our alpha strike be beneficial? Is it necessary to kill squads?

Is our aim to prevent these Rieekan squads from shooting our ships? Are our ships in danger? If not, why are we attacking turn 2? Can we delay our strike until our ships are actually in danger? By waiting will we get a more favourable outcome with more targets to shoot?

What you will notice with Rieekan squads is that Wedge is usually left just in range of your squadrons. He is there to tempt, that is all. Will the Rieekan player throw his squads at yours? The answer is probably not, and that introduces the next topic.

1B) Yavaris and Adar Tallon

Now the key to rebel squadrons is not the individuals themselves. On an individual basis, rebel aces are overpriced, pure and simple. However, combine them with Yavaris or Adar Tallon and you start to get a lot more benefit and thus value from them.

We all know Yavaris and Adar allow squads to take multiple shots in a single turn. But they have limitations. Yavaris prevents the squads from moving, and comes with a ship that cannot take boosted comms. So we now have a force multiplier which actively encourages the rebel squads to not venture beyond blue range of Yavaris.

So I ask again, will the Rieekan squads alpha strike yours? Probably not, because by doing so they give up the power of yavaris, and the control of the squad battle will fall to you.

Adar Tallon is different. He only works on a single unit. So whilst he does not have range limitations, he has different limitations. Firstly, nobody alpha strikes with a single unit, so just because Adar can allow Wedge to make it all the way on his own to your squads, does not mean that he will do that. Its sucide. Secondly, Adar doesnt have a magical power over intel, if you want to control the use of Adar, force the Rieekan player to activate Jan Orrs twice. Nobody winces at being shot by Jan twice.

2) Ship Game

Rieekan lets ships stay till the end of the status phase, which has obvious benefits for being able to return fire.

2A) The Admiral Ship

As with any Admiral ability it affects all ships including the flagship. The issue when building Rieekan lists, is that as with many other Admirals its of utmost importance to keep the admiral alive. Dodonna, Garm and Ozzel do a lot of their work in the early rounds of games, whereas Rieekan is most effective turns 4-6.

So what ship do we put Rieekan on? Well we've bought 4 corvettes or 134pts of squads with Yavaris and Adar, so what can we afford? Not always but quite often, the Rieekan player has run out of money by this point and makes a fatal mistake. They put Rieekan on a ship that is not very robust.

Very simply. Prioritise killing Rieekan above all else. This is your primary aim. Now how are you going to achieve that? Trade a ship for it if you have to, but make sure you kill him fast.

2B) Engine Techs and Ramming

The somewhat cheesy aspect of Rieekan, the abuse of the ramming rules. Even after their death, Rieekans corvettes will double ram you for more hull damage.

How can we avoid this? Well if we cannot just kill Rieekan straight away we have to take other measures.

What does Rieekans corvettes need to ram? They need to be positioned with a viable movement path towards your ship. How do we avoid this? Forget whatever your plan was. Against such a specialised fleet, you have one path and one path only to take.

Navigate. Every single dial you have should be navigate. Manouver so that you keep out of the corvettes front arcs. They cannot ram you if you are not there. These ships are designed to ram you to death, firepower is actually secondary. You will outgun them. So just make sure you manouver carefully.

But what about my squads you ask!? Well this is the concession, you cannot activate them as you cannot afford to not use navigate dials. However, you are more than capable of setting a trap for these ships, by positioning your squads like mines ready to fire at the next squadron phase. If Rieekan wants to play for the next turn, then well so can you.

2C) Defiance, Salvation and MC30's.

There are three main ships which benefit in a much more substantial way. The vengeance ships. Defiance, Salvation and MC30's can deliver a staggering amount of firepower in a single burst. However they are all limited. Defiance wants you in its side arc, Salvation its front arcs, and MC30s at close range.

Unlike normal play you must consider two things when planning your attack. As per normal, your approach path is important, consideration of how you avoid fire power on the way in. However, against Rieekan your departure path is also important, consideration of how you will escape fire power on your way back out.

Hit and RUN. Sure you might need to go close to kill his ships. But this doesnt mean you have to stay close once you have killed them...

3) Summary.

Kill the flagship as a priority.

Dont alpha strike squadrons early. This will not work against Rieekan Zombie escorts.

Navigation dials are key to avoiding ramming fireships.

Plan your escape.

Imperial fleets are currently built to hit fast, hard, and relentlessly starting as early as the second turn. Riekaan is especially tailored against this list style and punishes players who aren't ready to methodically eliminate targets.

Now lets be clear here. This question wasnt about how Imperial fleets beat Rieekan. This was how does your fleet beat Rieekan. Imperial fleets come in all shapes and sizes, your fleet does not. Your fleet is directly countered by Rieekan. This isnt an issue, it is something for you to consider when building your devestator list.

So this leads onto a different question. Why do I currently run multiple MC30s? Its very simple. I can hit from long range, hit very hard, and most crucially, escape back to long range. It completely circumvents Rieekan.

Now with Devestator you can do exactly the same thing. Because you are facing Rieekan you want to be speed 3 when you make your attack. You want to be able to escape into their weak arcs after killing so that they cant hurt you too badly. Now unlike normal, there are no margins for error. So no more gung ho speed 3 from deployment. That is childish. Plan your moves. Start slow and ramp up, hitting max speed at the right moment and not a moment sooner.

If you telegraph your actions, there will be corvettes sitting in your way preventing your escape. Plan your attack, wait for a gap to appear and then strike.

Devestator chooses to lose all its defense tokens to gain maximum power. In this case you may wish to hang on to the brace as the ships will fire back after you kill them.

I have to say. I don't get this sentiment. I see people beat Imperials all the time without out Rieekan. In fact I have not even used him next. I feel that he pushes my strategies in a direction I don't want. I could use him to help me learn 2nd player better but I don't think Rieekan is the issue.

Rieekan provides a problem for the Imperials sure but Motti is an issue at times. They both are learning commanders in my opinion. People end up relying on them heavily though.

People are already saying that you may see less Demolisher with the new waves. If you start seeing less Demolisher, you'll probably start seeing less Rieeken. That's at least the sense I get.

Ultimately, I don't think anybody thinks anything is OP until it wins some major event, and keep winning major events.

I wish I never used the word brainless.

I just meant I can outplay a Rieek and he still does what he wants that turn, and thats not fun for me.

If Rieekan is still doing what he wants to you that turn, you didn't outplay him - the Rieekan player outplayed you.

Rieekan takes a different mindset to play as and against so if you go in on either side playing like "normal" you're going to get tripped up. Good advice has already been given in this thread about how to deal with him. I'm going to reiterate that avoiding the zombie demolition derby clog in the middle of the table come roughly turn 3 is extremely important against the CR90B SW7 spam Rieekan fleets that are common around me (usually 3-4 CR90s + some mixture of MC30s and MC80 Defiance). You can avoid the clog in numerous ways, such as by being very mindful of the varying speeds so you can brake just short of the clog or shoot past it, going around the sides, or moving perpendicular to it while firing long-ranged broadsides. Getting stuck in the clog means getting double-arced by SW7 CR90Bs while smashing into zombie roadblocks and it becomes a hellacious meat grinder.

Another way Rieekan trips people up is in target selection. Simply throwing the most dice at every target isn't always the wisest course of action against Rieekan (this is also the case in "normal" games but much moreso with Rieekan). If it's nearing the end of a turn and I need to choose between a juicy attack on an enemy ship that won't kill it or a moderate to weak attack on a crippled ship that will probably kill it, the kill shot wins out. In a "normal" game you could content yourself with something else taking out the crippled ship next turn before it caused too much trouble, but with Rieekan that just won't work.

1.Mathematically, Riekaan adds more firepower, more durability, and more maneuvering options that every other commander in the game. Not any other commander; EVERY other commander.

2Now, I'm not accusing anybody of cheese. I think that Riekaan was added to combat a very specific style of list (the high activation low bid Demolisher list, which was nuts in Waves 1 and 2) and has done so effectively.

3Right now, as far as I can tell from Wave 3 and 4 and th new Campaign additions, Rebel players are at a severe disadvantage against Imperials when playing non-Riekaan lists. Their ships die faster, their squadrons die faster, and ultimately they have far fewer opportunities to block, ram, or shoot back. This is compounded by the new Rebel releases, which trade a certain degree of durability for lower costs and higher damage output and support options.

4Imperial fleets are currently built to hit fast, hard, and relentlessly starting as early as the second turn. Riekaan is especially tailored against this list style and punishes players who aren't ready to methodically eliminate targets.

This has been a great thread so far, with lots of good participants and ideas thrown out. I'll add a few and respond here. I've edited just a few lines I'd like to look at.

Its certainly possible that Rieekan can add a devastating amount of firepower, durability, and maneuvering options. In some of the counters that Ginkapo mentioned earlier in the thread, it will, in fact, be the non-Rieekan fleet that is demonstrating more firepower, durability, and maneuvering options. I think it varies depending upon how you use them. My Rieekan list trades up very well, so it hard counters large ships and wipes them out very quickly. I think it struggles with small highly maneuverable options like Ginkapo's fleet. But then, I'm not sure there are very many fleets that won't struggle against Gink's fleet. It just has the advantage of not being super-widely known, yet. I'm also not sure the commanders can be mathematically compared to each other except in the most simplistic terms. For example, I can look at destroyed ships that get to fire and the damage that they'll do with Rieekan, but I might also have been able to do the same thing from first player with another commander simply by activating the unit first and flying it to safety. The key is that the unit got to activate and do its damage. What Rieekan accomplishes is that you can vary your order drastically. For the other Rebel commanders, its hard to mathematically calculate. You can look at the raw dice that Ackbar adds for example, but that won't give you the additional benefit you might get from removing an enemy ship from play quickly and therefore its dice for the rest of the game. You can look at the raw damage evaded by Mon Mothma, but if that evasion results in your ship living an additional round than it might otherwise have lived, then that's pretty hard to quantify.

TLDR version of that: Match your ships and game plan to your commander and their abilities, regardless of whether you take Rieekan or not.

Sentence 2 above: I think they just thought it was a strategically rich commander ability and added it to the game for that reason. It only incidentally worked well against Demolisher.

Sentence 3 above: I disagree with this entirely. I speak as someone who has won a regional with Rieekan, but who has since moved on to gaming with other admirals. I joined the game during the big Ackbar phase and fell into the non-Ackbar camp to start. Mon Mothma is my favorite commander. Rieekan is great for keeping my ships alive and he was great for a season for countering DeMSUs, but people have really moved on from DeMSUs and developed plenty of ways to counter them. Now we've got builds that specifically counter Rieekan (see Ginkapo, but there are others). In short, if I can get another commander and their ability, I'd rather have that commander and their ability. At this point, we've noticed that the ships themselves come in various archetypes that aren't dependent upon the commander. 1 MC80/3 Corvettes, 2 MC30/3 Corvettes, 1 AFMKII/2 Corvettes/plus either Yavaris to double down on squadrons or an MC30 to provide an extra strong hitter. I've seen all of those archetypes combined with different commanders. We could probably add more, and someone could probably cover Imperial archetypes (2xISD christmas tries, 3VSD Rhymerball, ISD+Rhymerball+support, DeMSU, PT106's ascension to Godhood build). Waves 3-4 are about to completely upset the applecart with new ship types and commanders, but I think if we had more time for Ginkapo's fleet to make an impact on the broader meta, we'd see 3xMC30, 1x Corvettes with several commanders as well.

TLDR: There's no severe disadvantage here. Other commanders are good too.

Sentence 4: I think a big generalization here. I build all of my fleets to hit fast and hard. I'd say most lists have the potential to drop a lot of DPS quickly (Q's nationals list, PT's 2 ISD list, Gink's Ackbar Star Destroyers). So I think hitting hard and fast is good list building. The trick is that you want to balance that with your maneuverability and make sure you aren't wasting dice. For any game like this, if you count up the rolls at the end of the game, I guarantee you that the winner rolled more dice. They might have some nice mods, but anyone can take those. They might have had a lucky roll or two, but likely you did, too. So here's the key: Review every lost game to see where you lost dice and why. Can you correct that with your play? Honestly, that's often the case. The build was alright, but you need to play it differently (cough, nav, cough). Do you need to go back to change your archetype and upgrades? That's fine, too.

I'm not sure Rieekan needs a nerf, when as a competitive Rebel player I'm already looking beyond to other commanders and the benefits that they provide. The key is to be ahead of the meta. Once people started playing Rieekan, it became imperative to figure out how to beat him. We're really at the point where a lot of lists can. If you want to get ahead of the meta, don't look at the fleets that are doing well right now, look at the ~concepts~ of those fleets, and figure out how to beat those concepts.

I wish I never used the word brainless.

I just meant I can outplay a Rieek and he still does what he wants that turn, and thats not fun for me.

If Rieekan is still doing what he wants to you that turn, you didn't outplay him - the Rieekan player outplayed you.

Rieekan takes a different mindset to play as and against so if you go in on either side playing like "normal" you're going to get tripped up. Good advice has already been given in this thread about how to deal with him. I'm going to reiterate that avoiding the zombie demolition derby clog in the middle of the table come roughly turn 3 is extremely important against the CR90B SW7 spam Rieekan fleets that are common around me (usually 3-4 CR90s + some mixture of MC30s and MC80 Defiance). You can avoid the clog in numerous ways, such as by being very mindful of the varying speeds so you can brake just short of the clog or shoot past it, going around the sides, or moving perpendicular to it while firing long-ranged broadsides. Getting stuck in the clog means getting double-arced by SW7 CR90Bs while smashing into zombie roadblocks and it becomes a hellacious meat grinder.

Another way Rieekan trips people up is in target selection. Simply throwing the most dice at every target isn't always the wisest course of action against Rieekan (this is also the case in "normal" games but much moreso with Rieekan). If it's nearing the end of a turn and I need to choose between a juicy attack on an enemy ship that won't kill it or a moderate to weak attack on a crippled ship that will probably kill it, the kill shot wins out. In a "normal" game you could content yourself with something else taking out the crippled ship next turn before it caused too much trouble, but with Rieekan that just won't work.

How is losing a ship outplaying someone? Its just using the admiral's ability to make the most of it...

As far as Rhymer being annoying....., I really really really really wish default squadron ship attack range was close-medium instead of range 1. I also wish squad engagement range was larger than 1. My enjoyment of Armada is severely lessened (borderline frustrating so) when having to move ships and change squad hull points when there is a giant cluster of squadrons and ships all within 3" of each other. I find the game drags to a crawl, game-changing bumping and knocking-over occurs no matter how careful you are, and the game just gets painful to play.

My biggest gripe with Armada is the poor design decisions the devs made with the close attack proximity requirements. The game would be sooo much more fluid and enjoyable if ships and squads had much longer firing ranges and longer engagement ranges, and also a minimum firing distance. The game would open up with ships all over the map instead of the often cluster mess that happens in most matches, and almost always in big squad battles. There's nothing more painful than two builds with 8-12 squads each. Ugggg, I feel like I'm playing Operation instead of Armada.

Ironically, those are my favorite games.

But I'll grant you the bumping and the efforts taken to avoid it can be aggravating.

Reikaan is powerful, but everytime you get an advantage from him you lost a ship / unique squadron and given your opponent points. This means that even if you win, your wins aren't as good. Akbar, on the other hand is capable of tabling an opponent without losing a ship.

Ironically, those are my favorite games.

But I'll grant you the bumping and the efforts taken to avoid it can be aggravating.

FCT should help mitigate this quite a bit.

Can we start from a position of objectiveness and positivity rather than disgust and negativity please? Instead of how to nerf Rieekan, lets first look at how Rieekan impacts on the game and whether there are tricks we can play to take away his power:

1) Squadron Game

Rieekan allows rebel aces to remain alive till the status phase. This has benefits in making sure they all get to activate and get at least one last shot.

1A) Zombie Escorts

The major beneficiary of RIeekan within the squads are Luke and Wedge. They dont just gain the benefit of being able to fire after their death, they continue to absorb damage and prevent the enemy from hunting their friends.

Who does this affect? This has a big impact on alpha striking squadron builds. The archetype of this is Howl, Mauler, Soontir, Flight Controllered Tie Interceptors. Its designed to hit first and hit hard, taking out squads before they can respond. Zombie Escorts is a hard counter to this, as Wedge should be positioned such that he will be take the brunt of the attack.

What can we do to mitigate this? Well first up, why are we attacking the zombie squads in the first place? Alpha strike players have a tendency to throw their squads at the start of turn two to get the initiative in the squadron battle. Clearly this isnt going to work, so why are we attacking Rieekan squads?

Is our aim to kill squadrons and earn victory points this way? If so why are we doing this if the situation isnt beneficial? Can we wait until we can avoid the escort and kill other squads instead? Will delaying our alpha strike be beneficial? Is it necessary to kill squads?

Is our aim to prevent these Rieekan squads from shooting our ships? Are our ships in danger? If not, why are we attacking turn 2? Can we delay our strike until our ships are actually in danger? By waiting will we get a more favourable outcome with more targets to shoot?

What you will notice with Rieekan squads is that Wedge is usually left just in range of your squadrons. He is there to tempt, that is all. Will the Rieekan player throw his squads at yours? The answer is probably not, and that introduces the next topic.

1B) Yavaris and Adar Tallon

Now the key to rebel squadrons is not the individuals themselves. On an individual basis, rebel aces are overpriced, pure and simple. However, combine them with Yavaris or Adar Tallon and you start to get a lot more benefit and thus value from them.

We all know Yavaris and Adar allow squads to take multiple shots in a single turn. But they have limitations. Yavaris prevents the squads from moving, and comes with a ship that cannot take boosted comms. So we now have a force multiplier which actively encourages the rebel squads to not venture beyond blue range of Yavaris.

So I ask again, will the Rieekan squads alpha strike yours? Probably not, because by doing so they give up the power of yavaris, and the control of the squad battle will fall to you.

Adar Tallon is different. He only works on a single unit. So whilst he does not have range limitations, he has different limitations. Firstly, nobody alpha strikes with a single unit, so just because Adar can allow Wedge to make it all the way on his own to your squads, does not mean that he will do that. Its sucide. Secondly, Adar doesnt have a magical power over intel, if you want to control the use of Adar, force the Rieekan player to activate Jan Orrs twice. Nobody winces at being shot by Jan twice.

2) Ship Game

Rieekan lets ships stay till the end of the status phase, which has obvious benefits for being able to return fire.

2A) The Admiral Ship

As with any Admiral ability it affects all ships including the flagship. The issue when building Rieekan lists, is that as with many other Admirals its of utmost importance to keep the admiral alive. Dodonna, Garm and Ozzel do a lot of their work in the early rounds of games, whereas Rieekan is most effective turns 4-6.

So what ship do we put Rieekan on? Well we've bought 4 corvettes or 134pts of squads with Yavaris and Adar, so what can we afford? Not always but quite often, the Rieekan player has run out of money by this point and makes a fatal mistake. They put Rieekan on a ship that is not very robust.

Very simply. Prioritise killing Rieekan above all else. This is your primary aim. Now how are you going to achieve that? Trade a ship for it if you have to, but make sure you kill him fast.

2B) Engine Techs and Ramming

The somewhat cheesy aspect of Rieekan, the abuse of the ramming rules. Even after their death, Rieekans corvettes will double ram you for more hull damage.

How can we avoid this? Well if we cannot just kill Rieekan straight away we have to take other measures.

What does Rieekans corvettes need to ram? They need to be positioned with a viable movement path towards your ship. How do we avoid this? Forget whatever your plan was. Against such a specialised fleet, you have one path and one path only to take.

Navigate. Every single dial you have should be navigate. Manouver so that you keep out of the corvettes front arcs. They cannot ram you if you are not there. These ships are designed to ram you to death, firepower is actually secondary. You will outgun them. So just make sure you manouver carefully.

But what about my squads you ask!? Well this is the concession, you cannot activate them as you cannot afford to not use navigate dials. However, you are more than capable of setting a trap for these ships, by positioning your squads like mines ready to fire at the next squadron phase. If Rieekan wants to play for the next turn, then well so can you.

2C) Defiance, Salvation and MC30's.

There are three main ships which benefit in a much more substantial way. The vengeance ships. Defiance, Salvation and MC30's can deliver a staggering amount of firepower in a single burst. However they are all limited. Defiance wants you in its side arc, Salvation its front arcs, and MC30s at close range.

Unlike normal play you must consider two things when planning your attack. As per normal, your approach path is important, consideration of how you avoid fire power on the way in. However, against Rieekan your departure path is also important, consideration of how you will escape fire power on your way back out.

Hit and RUN. Sure you might need to go close to kill his ships. But this doesnt mean you have to stay close once you have killed them...

3) Summary.

Kill the flagship as a priority.

Dont alpha strike squadrons early. This will not work against Rieekan Zombie escorts.

Navigation dials are key to avoiding ramming fireships.

Plan your escape.

Superb post: The thoughts on how to play the squadron game apply not merely to how you play against Rieekan but against the squad game entirely.

I was talking with a key Rieekan squad player recently and he mentioned that as a squadron player he's quite alright if given first player by an opponent since it does give him the chance to alpha squads. If you're not alphing a Rieekan player's squads, then the Rieekan squad game starts to look much like that of any other commander. It might very well be built for a strong alpha. One of Adar's biggest benefits is in helping an alpha. Let's say Garm takes first player and delivers and alpha and then uses Adar on Wedge for more nastiness in the squadron phase. There's always next turn for Yavaris.

Very valid points on Engine techs and ramming, but the solution sounds very much like your own fleet of highly maneuverable MC30s. Yes, the Rieekan player will have an enormously difficult time ramming them. MC30s are a fairly hard counter to the smaller ships, so that's not surprising. They can be outfitted to kill them in one shot and have the speed and maneuverability to avoid them. An ISD, even at speed 3, is going to have a very hard time avoiding that CR90. The Gladiator eats Corvettes in Imperial fleets in much the same way that MC30s do in Rebel fleets, so there is a highly maneuverable counterpart. Squadrons are a key answer to the B's, and a few Rogue squadrons at that, because a critical clean-up of 1-2 hull points from Rogues significantly limits Rieekan's ability in the final phase of the round. If the ship doesn't live, that mitigates his ability.

You mention firepower being secondary, but in my experience that's definitely not true. Maybe if they outfit with only engine techs and no other upgrades on a B, but I'd say that build wastes a lot of points on ramming. SW-7s on Bs are absolute damage beasts. I could see an SW-7 B build with engine techs worth quite a bit since that's even more flexibility with deployment and first turn activation. In any event, I want several double arc shots and then any ramming is more of a benefit at the end. If they're building cruise missiles, then I think they're building their B's wrong and likely maneuvering them wrong.

Very valid points on Engine techs and ramming, but the solution sounds very much like your own fleet of highly maneuverable MC30s. Yes, the Rieekan player will have an enormously difficult time ramming them. MC30s are a fairly hard counter to the smaller ships, so that's not surprising. They can be outfitted to kill them in one shot and have the speed and maneuverability to avoid them. An ISD, even at speed 3, is going to have a very hard time avoiding that CR90.

Another option is to bring high-hull fleet and just take it. As long as these corvettes are out, the exchange benefits ISD player (as it also removes activations from Rieekan and makes it easier to target already activated ships). As a matter of fact my regional list originally was created as a direct counter to Rieekan.

Change Rieeken, change demsu, change ramming, change ackbar, change Rhymer, change this, change that. Everyone needs to realize we all have our pet peeves with the game, but nothing is op, nothing is imbalanced. If it's been released it means it's undergone extensive play testing. Ffg doesn't miss when it comes to good mechanics in games. In the end we all hate something, but it usually just requires a new approach to deal with.

Change nothing.

Very valid points on Engine techs and ramming, but the solution sounds very much like your own fleet of highly maneuverable MC30s. Yes, the Rieekan player will have an enormously difficult time ramming them. MC30s are a fairly hard counter to the smaller ships, so that's not surprising. They can be outfitted to kill them in one shot and have the speed and maneuverability to avoid them. An ISD, even at speed 3, is going to have a very hard time avoiding that CR90.

Another option is to bring high-hull fleet and just take it. As long as these corvettes are out, the exchange benefits ISD player (as it also removes activations from Rieekan and makes it easier to target already activated ships). As a matter of fact my regional list originally was created as a direct counter to Rieekan.

Yes, you've got a really good fleet.

Very valid points on Engine techs and ramming, but the solution sounds very much like your own fleet of highly maneuverable MC30s. Yes, the Rieekan player will have an enormously difficult time ramming them. MC30s are a fairly hard counter to the smaller ships, so that's not surprising. They can be outfitted to kill them in one shot and have the speed and maneuverability to avoid them. An ISD, even at speed 3, is going to have a very hard time avoiding that CR90.

Another option is to bring high-hull fleet and just take it. As long as these corvettes are out, the exchange benefits ISD player (as it also removes activations from Rieekan and makes it easier to target already activated ships). As a matter of fact my regional list originally was created as a direct counter to Rieekan.

Yes, you've got a really good fleet.

..and it means that it's time for something different I only mentioned it to illustrate one of the strategies that are good against Rieekan. Essentially as was stated before, one needs to fly differently against him. Once this is taken into account, the only fleets that are at disadvantage are the fleets that heavily rely on the ability to alpha strike without retaliation. From my point of view Rieekan does provide a bonus but it is in line with his cost (including the opportunity cost of not taking a different admiral) and is not game-breaking in any way.

..and it means that it's time for something different I only mentioned it to illustrate one of the strategies that are good against Rieekan. Essentially as was stated before, one needs to fly differently against him. Once this is taken into account, the only fleets that are at disadvantage are the fleets that heavily rely on the ability to alpha strike without retaliation. From my point of view Rieekan does provide a bonus but it is in line with his cost (including the opportunity cost of not taking a different admiral) and is not game-breaking in any way.

Definitely time for something new. Its convenient that we've got wave 3 almost on top of us and wave 4 around the corner.