First impressions of Wave 3/4

By RogueCommander, in Star Wars: Armada

So after months of theory crafting, I've now gotten to play against Interdictors 3 times now. I'm rebel only, so I e tried out Liberty, GR75s, Cracken and Madine in various lists.

Caveats, with the following disclaimer: It's early days, this is just a first impression. New tactics will emerge.

The Liberty is more than just a souped up Neb but, like the Neb, it's a bit quirky.

Gonzatis and GR75s.... Ok, cool, but not too crazy. Slicers can be annoying.

1 Interdictor... Ok, not too bad.

1 Interdictor with Konstantine... Can be gross.

2 Interdictors with Konstantine.... I'm worried it's almost game breaking. Between Projection Experts, Scramblers, Engineering 5, AND all the speed shenanigans... It's a lot.

Sorry I don't have a detailed series of AARs.

Other thoughts?

Huh. So what happened to you in the 2interdictor konstantine game?

Dictors and Konstantine just make you really have to play aggressively. Instead of starting at a medium speed, I've had better success starting my ships either at max or close to max speed.

yeah. also two dictors dont have that much fire power.

snip

I play Ozzel. Konstantine did/does nothing.

Apart from the staight up hard counter i don't care for double Indic lists. If you want to spend 220 ish points for a split of 4 red dice front battery be my guest.

Edited by Trizzo2

NEBULON-B'S ARE GOLD!

I ran Mothma's Angels and had a blast! Gods, having such control over my B-Wings felt great.

Huh. So what happened to you in the 2interdictor konstantine game?

Edited by RogueCommander

yeah. also two dictors dont have that much fire power.

At medium range they have enough when you are slowed to speed 1 for a couple of rounds.

snip

I play Ozzel. Konstantine did/does nothing.

Apart from the staight up hard counter i don't care for double Indic lists. If you want to spend 220 ish points for a split of 4 red dice front battery be my guest.

Edited by RogueCommander

I played a tournament today and this is my take away:

Rebel squadrons (Jan & X Wings specifically) just got so much of a boost, I'm hard pressed to think of a way to combat them effectively. Yeah, Rhymer gets his too, but you're going to need a lot of TIE's to fight a well supported group of Bomber fighters.

Interdictor with Konstatine brought a Liberty to it's knees by grounding it on an debris field. It's serious if you build for it.

Liberty can rain absolute hell on targets. But it's a thin line like when you start turning and ISD into a Christmas tree.

I played a tournament today and this is my take away:

Rebel squadrons (Jan & X Wings specifically) just got so much of a boost, I'm hard pressed to think of a way to combat them effectively. Yeah, Rhymer gets his too, but you're going to need a lot of TIE's to fight a well supported group of Bomber fighters.

Interdictor with Konstatine brought a Liberty to it's knees by grounding it on an debris field. It's serious if you build for it.

Liberty can rain absolute hell on targets. But it's a thin line like when you start turning and ISD into a Christmas tree.

Please clarify.

I played a tournament today and this is my take away:

Rebel squadrons (Jan & X Wings specifically) just got so much of a boost, I'm hard pressed to think of a way to combat them effectively. Yeah, Rhymer gets his too, but you're going to need a lot of TIE's to fight a well supported group of Bomber fighters.

Interdictor with Konstatine brought a Liberty to it's knees by grounding it on an debris field. It's serious if you build for it.

Liberty can rain absolute hell on targets. But it's a thin line like when you start turning and ISD into a Christmas tree.

Please clarify.

I mean that I ran into super effective Liberties, but they were point sinks. I believe both lists had only 2 ships with 1-3 flotillas. Had I managed to kill one off in those fights, it would have been a lot of points to me.

I did not manage to kill either one I faced, but that could have changed based on some better play on my behalf (the VSD fleet I ran didn't have any tricks that could manage it).

NEBULON-B'S ARE GOLD!

I ran Mothma's Angels and had a blast! Gods, having such control over my B-Wings felt great.

You know, fleet nicknames annoy me.....never know what the heck is in the fleet. I'm just gonna start calling my fleet the 'Awesome Beatstick of Absolute Doom', regardless of what's actually in it. That'll teach ya'.

No really, what's this fleets composition?

I really like the 2 command interdictors. I thought they were command 3 for some reason.

I played a tournament today and this is my take away:

Rebel squadrons (Jan & X Wings specifically) just got so much of a boost, I'm hard pressed to think of a way to combat them effectively. Yeah, Rhymer gets his too, but you're going to need a lot of TIE's to fight a well supported group of Bomber fighters.

From what? What happened?

NEBULON-B'S ARE GOLD!

I ran Mothma's Angels and had a blast! Gods, having such control over my B-Wings felt great.

You know, fleet nicknames annoy me.....never know what the heck is in the fleet. I'm just gonna start calling my fleet the 'Awesome Beatstick of Absolute Doom', regardless of what's actually in it. That'll teach ya'.

No really, what's this fleets composition?

I was thinkinh the exact same th8ng. I know a lot of the lingo but ... huh?

NEBULON-B'S ARE GOLD!

I ran Mothma's Angels and had a blast! Gods, having such control over my B-Wings felt great.

You know, fleet nicknames annoy me.....never know what the heck is in the fleet. I'm just gonna start calling my fleet the 'Awesome Beatstick of Absolute Doom', regardless of what's actually in it. That'll teach ya'.

No really, what's this fleets composition?

I was thinkinh the exact same th8ng. I know a lot of the lingo but ... huh?

Takes half a second to pop to the Fleet List forum where there is a fleet with that name...

Because of that availability of reference, I find it easier to say, for example, "Mothma's Angels" rather than "All of my Nebulon-Bs with Fighter command and Flight Coordination Teams" or something like that...

I won't be doing the same, but I can at least see why its done.

I played a tournament today and this is my take away:

Rebel squadrons (Jan & X Wings specifically) just got so much of a boost, I'm hard pressed to think of a way to combat them effectively. Yeah, Rhymer gets his too, but you're going to need a lot of TIE's to fight a well supported group of Bomber fighters.

From what? What happened?

Bomber Command Center and Toryn Farr. Those two with an X and B wings allowed for absolute re-roll hell. I had IG and hoped to eliminate Jan (and failed to do so in two games). That bomber keyword just made their all purpose fighters nutty.

NEBULON-B'S ARE GOLD!

I ran Mothma's Angels and had a blast! Gods, having such control over my B-Wings felt great.

You know, fleet nicknames annoy me.....never know what the heck is in the fleet. I'm just gonna start calling my fleet the 'Awesome Beatstick of Absolute Doom', regardless of what's actually in it. That'll teach ya'.

No really, what's this fleets composition?

I was thinkinh the exact same th8ng. I know a lot of the lingo but ... huh?

Takes half a second to pop to the Fleet List forum where there is a fleet with that name...

Because of that availability of reference, I find it easier to say, for example, "Mothma's Angels" rather than "All of my Nebulon-Bs with Fighter command and Flight Coordination Teams" or something like that...

I won't be doing the same, but I can at least see why its done.

Oh I know, and I did. That's more of a dig at Lyraeus, hehe.

Not my fault you are behind on the times Lupine ^_~

Edited by Lyraeus

I played a tournament today and this is my take away:

Rebel squadrons (Jan & X Wings specifically) just got so much of a boost, I'm hard pressed to think of a way to combat them effectively. Yeah, Rhymer gets his too, but you're going to need a lot of TIE's to fight a well supported group of Bomber fighters.

From what? What happened?

Bomber Command Center and Toryn Farr. Those two with an X and B wings allowed for absolute re-roll hell. I had IG and hoped to eliminate Jan (and failed to do so in two games). That bomber keyword just made their all purpose fighters nutty.

I played a tournament today and this is my take away:

Rebel squadrons (Jan & X Wings specifically) just got so much of a boost, I'm hard pressed to think of a way to combat them effectively. Yeah, Rhymer gets his too, but you're going to need a lot of TIE's to fight a well supported group of Bomber fighters.

From what? What happened?

Bomber Command Center and Toryn Farr. Those two with an X and B wings allowed for absolute re-roll hell. I had IG and hoped to eliminate Jan (and failed to do so in two games). That bomber keyword just made their all purpose fighters nutty.

Reroll hell does not help when your dice hate you. Had Nym get what 5 attacks in a game with Toryn and BCC's and not a single crit. . . /grumble

I've discovered that my dice rolls hate me when I'm doing anything for my benefit.

If I'm doing something for the benefit of anything opposing me, or at least tangentially against my interests, they roll fantastically. HotAC has demonstrated this beyond any reasonable doubt.

The interdictor is a really weird beast whose value depends entirely on its match-up (opponent's fleet), and as such will probably not become a serious competitive ship.



if you're facing a ship that needs fast, slippery, precise maneuvers like a Demolisher or an MC30, the Interdictor really ruins their day (perhaps even depriving them of their black dice the entire game).

If you're facing ships that want to be fast and circle you at range like TRC CR90s or Ackbar AFKIIs, the Interdictor again really ruins their day, allowing your forces to close with those ships and pummel them.

However, against lists that are happy to come right at you jousting, the interdictor's value starts to drop off rapidly. Against a Liberty and a bunch of Nebs, they want to come right at you as slowly as possible, milking their advantage at Red Die range and delaying the mid/short range right as much as possible. Dropping their speed down typically only helps them in this purpose. The only time slowing enemy jousters down will be advantageous is if you're opponent wants to joust with a bunch of ISD-1s or Vic-1s and you're sporting blue-died jousters, as you might be able to maintain a mid-range combat a little longer and have a dice swing in your favor. However, the blue band of the range stick is so narrow that this is far from certain, and 100+ points is a lot to drop on a ship that might give you one turn of blue dice without their black dice.

So there are match-ups where interdiction is worth it's weight in gold, and others where it may not net you anything. Once you're in range to start slowing down Nadine Nebs and Liberties, they're already in Red Die range so it's pretty moot to hold them in place and let you fight them at range. And Nadine is good so expect to see a lot more Nebulons and Liberties popping up as they rain on the interdictor's parade.

How is everyone finding the Liberty? The 2 shields on the side are really starting to bother me.. too many things in the game are fast enough to put consistent fire down onto side hulls.

Re: the Interdictor/AllWingsStandingBy

I think your analysis is fair provided you're only concerned about an Interdictor with the G8 Experimental Projector. Once those Nebs/Liberties get to short range and you're rerolling dice with a Target Scrambler, I think you'll see it helps you in the fisticuffs stage of a fight even it wasn't as helpful in the "mess with movement" task. Beyond that there's the deployment screwage options (Grav Shift Reroute/G7s). It still merits much testing, mind you, but I'm curious to see how it pans out. So far I've found mine to be exemplary with support abilities and durability (Engineering Team + Wulff = so many consistent Engineering points) but mediocre with its damage output. Merits further testing methinks.