Planning on taking this list to a tournament next week, critique welcome. It's an update of a Wave 2 fleet I've had success with, and I can't get my hands on much Wave 3/4 stuff before the tournament, so I'm not going to be using a totally new build.

MC80 Assault Cruiser

- Garm Bel Iblis

- Veteran Captain

- Engineering Teams

- Redundant Shielding

- Electronic Countermeasures

(162)

MC80 Assault Cruiser

- Veteran Captain

- Engineering Teams

- Redundant Shielding

- Electronic Countermeasures

(137)

Nebulon-B Escort Frigate

- Redemption

- Projection Experts

(71)

GR-75 Medium Transports

- Bright Hope

- Leia Organa

- Comms Net

(25)

395 points

Intel Sweep

Contested Outpost

Most Wanted

The fleet is very flexible on going first or second; benefiting from all of its objectives, and liking the initiative to ensure it gets a critical repair command in to save a ship. The whole thing flies in close proximity, using Bright Hope to ensure that each MC80 is always stocked with a repair token, and able to spend a single token to recover 3 shields a turn (including Redundant Shields), plus whatever the Projection Experts need to do. If one ship is taking the brunt of an assault, it can potentially recover 7 shields in a turn (2 from a command, 1 from Redemption and Engineering Teams, 1 more from a token, 1 from Redundant Shields, and 2 from Redemption's Projection Experts). Bright Hope and Redemption want to mostly sit the fight out behind your two capital ships and let them do the heavy lifting.

I like it. That's how I would use redemption- with vet captains and Garm. Though the token generation you have here does seem a little overkill, and you are completely lacking in squadrons. Granted, 3/4 ships have 2 blue AA, but none of these have GT slots for shooting both ships and fighters from the same arc.

As your opponent, if I couldn't get into just the front arcs (nearly impossible with 2 MCH1, pending how they're flown), I'd just park everything in a broadside, bombers, ships, everything. You'd only be able to hit 1 thing at a time. I have a similar list but with 2 AF-Bs and fighter cover for this reason. Not saying it's better, just a thought on a vulnerability. Perhaps downgrading one to an AF-B and taking another Gozanti could work.

You have no dice modification (except via the abundance of potential CF tokens). Additionally, the ability to recover so many shields is great, but I wonder if you would benefit more from advanced projectors than redundant shields. Making this change would allow you to slip in leading shots on both MCH1s and take your point total to 399. That, or the projection experts on your Neb seems like a big risk for your Neb-not only does that require 1 command to transfer those shields, but it would require another command (even with a token) to fully recover them on a ship that needs its shields. So my suggestion would be either to replace both redundants with APs(399) or to drop the PEs on Redemption (397) for leading shots on both Cruisers. You are very tanky as is, but my own preference would be to trade some tank for some assured firepower.

Your objectives are cruel, though nowadays as a non-interdictor player I always wander if contested outpost is the right choice in my own objective selection. I would think fire lanes could be better, especially with 2 MCH1s, but I think that the survivability of this fleet could also make Fleet Ambush a viable decision. If you position right, your opponent will only be able to hit the big fish, and you will split their fleet in half, allowing you to recover minimal damage consistently over time. Even if you get bombarded by a Yavaaris B-wing strike, you can recover 7 shields in one turn-and then 5 more on the next, and keeping about steady thereafter. But Rhymer* (edited) l would still suck, mostly because your Gozanti would likely be toast. I just like to try and find viable applications for fleet ambush, so this may also just be wistful thinking (garbage).

I think you're definitely going to feel your fleet's lack of maneuverability on this one. You have to keep four ships in close proximity, which will likely create a very obvious activation order to avoid overlapping your own ships.

And as Park pointed out, there's no attack dice manipulation, and the fleet doesn't really have a ton of firepower that it can bring to bear in a single target. Combine the size and lack of maneuverability that two MC80 ACs have, and it leaves you with a difficult time bracketing a target with both ships. If you fly them nose-to-tail, you have to activate the lead ship first and blocking the entire formation takes a single ship with just decent survivability. If you fly them separated, it's easy enough to block one of the MC80s, leaving you a single broadside to attack with. These obstacles aren't impossible to overcome, but it'll be tricky and I don't know your skill level with maneuvering clunky ships. Spamming Nav commands will help, and Leia can switch a dial to Engineering when necessary (which will also give you the token bump with Comms Net).

I think the big issue is that your battle plan requires the activation of three ships to be fully realized. You need Bright Hope to give a token, Salvation to zap two shields over with Advanced Projectors, and then the MC80 itself to resolve an Engineering command to use Redundant Shields and engineering points. There's not a lot of flexibility. And if an ISD-I rams into you with its black dice, drops your shields and mauls your hull, you're going to get a single activation to bring your shields back up before the ISD-I goes again and tries to finish you off.

I would definitely give the list a try, I just want to highlight the weaknesses so you might see them coming before it hits the table. But in the new Wave 3/4 meta, the two biggest threats are going to be Madine lists (they'll dodge your side arcs and nose-block your MC80s to death), Interdictors (your slow, clunky ships will become even slower and clunkier) and Konstantine (same reason).

As far as Objectives, I don't think Most Wanted services this fleet well, but it's less threatening than your other options. You're not going to get serious attack bump (three dice if the two MC80s and Salvation can all target the ship), but Advanced Gunnery could be terrible (especially if your opponent has an ISD or MC80 Liberty without Gunnery Teams), Precision Strike would be almost a guaranteed loss to a bomber wing, and you don't have enough ships to get a huge boost from Opening Salvo (and they're almost guaranteed to get half points against your MC80s). For Yellow, Contested Outpost has become very dangerous in the Interdictor world. If your opponent has Grav Shift Reroute, you can be certain that the station will be dragged further away, and there's a good chance your opponent can play with your speed to keep your ships off of it. Personally, I avoid Fire Lanes like the plague, because the points swing from losing the tokens can be massive. And Intel Sweep it's great with this list. Which ship will you use as your objective ship? Both the Neb and GR-75 have to stay close to the bigger ships for protection, and those bigger ships will slow it down, making it easier for your opponent to grab enough objectives. Dangerous Territory might be a littler easier and also will let your large-based ships ignore obstacles for maneuvering.

You might want to bring bibs for your opponents in case someone brings a bomber list with flotillas cause they will be drooling all over themselves. This is what I've been running, hoping specifically to catch a fleet like yours.

TB Isn't just for Tuberculosis
Author: Hastatior

Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 397/400

Commander: Admiral Ozzel

Assault Objective: Precision Strike
Defense Objective: Hyperspace Assault
Navigation Objective: Minefields

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Admiral Titus ( 2 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
- Bomber Command Center ( 8 points)
= 37 total ship cost

[ flagship ] Interdictor-class Suppression Refit (90 points)
- Admiral Ozzel ( 20 points)
- Interdictor ( 3 points)
- Wulff Yularen ( 7 points)
- Engine Techs ( 8 points)
- Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams ( 6 points)
- Ion Cannon Batteries ( 5 points)
- Targeting Scrambler ( 5 points)
- G-8 Experiemental Projector ( 8 points)
= 152 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
- Bomber Command Center ( 8 points)
= 35 total ship cost

Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Vector ( 2 points)
- Commandant Aresko ( 7 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
- Bomber Command Center ( 8 points)
= 44 total ship cost

1 Dengar ( 20 points)
1 Darth Vader ( 21 points)
8 TIE Bomber Squadrons ( 72 points)
1 Major Rhymer ( 16 points)

Card view link

Fleet created with Armada Warlords

Wow, thanks for the well thought out and insightful commentary everyone! This is more detailed feedback than I had hoped for. Some of the points I can only agree with: it is a slow, tanky list that prioritizes defense over dice manipulation, and is soft to Rhymer balls. I have some other lists that I really want to update for Waves 3/4 that are a little better rounded, but I don't see myself being able to pick up many of the expansions yet, so this list is something to a concession to what I have available.

I can say that I'm quite good at maneuvering slow and bulky ships; I was running triple Victory lists when the game was first released, and have played a version of this fleet several times, so to me the MC80 turning arc seems positively luxurious. Some of the clunkyness of the activation orders can be offset with good flying, and part of the token redundancy is for flexibility in when Bright Hope activates (ie. I can activate it last in a round to replace a spent token; first in the next round, or wait and use the Veteran Captain). Still, I agree that it's not going to surprise people in where it ends up or what its firepower is pointed at.

I'm currently iffy on the Projection Experts; they don't help with the Nebulon-B's poor survivability, but since I can use a single repair command (with token) to generate 2 shields on another ship (3+2+1 from Redemption), I've seen that command be the difference in keeping an MC80 alive against bombers. Your suggestions for objectives are great, and I will reconsider all of my thoughts on them, especially the mention of what Interdictors now bring to the table that has to be considered.

Ultimately, I think one of this fleet's greatest weaknesses is the tournament scoring system, as it may not be able to do much but have tight point games, win or lose. I've mostly played it in more casual games previously, only caring about win or lose.

Oh absolutely this would be fun to try and use in a casual setting. That's the only place I would use my similar list (Red Dead Redemption). But Reegsk absolutely is correct about the slowness of this list. That's why I have the AFs in mine, though I'm now definitely interested to try the Mc80 with an AF and the same concept.

I do still disagree about the fire lanes for this particular list, though. These ships want to go slow, so it's easy to keep 8 of your dice all on target, and force your opponent to have to come at your broadsides. If they go for your nose to block, then that really only helps your token generation. Just my take on the turtle lists.

Also, I may be wrong. But I didn't think that Redemption affected itself

Redemption affects a friendly ship at distance 1-5, that means itself, as its a friendly ship at distance 1-5.

I like the list but commentators are correct in that it will suffer against bombers, if I was playing it I would change out the princess for toryn Farr as you have three ships with double blue anti fighter dice, that's 6 blue dice with 3 re rolls. You should be able to lay on damage to a bomber ball with that, it's not great but better than nothing

Toryn Farr is an excellent idea! I hadn't considered her effect on anti-squadron fire; that's just what I want. I really think that Leia is critical to being able to effectively navigate the lumbering behemoths though; being able to submit a Navigate command when needed is important. I think I might try cutting Projection Experts for Toryn Farr on Redemption, I know it doesn't work on its own rerolls, but it still affects both MC80s, and will probably have more overall impact on the game than the Projection Experts.

Toryn is definatly worth a look IMHO. I do like the idea of the tough MC-80 build (Engineering team, ECM, Redundant Shields) and I've used it in the past but I'm not sure how well basing a whole list around the theory will work in a competitive setting.

Update: I got second place with this fleet. I was unsure about what fleet to run at the last minute, but it seemed like nobody was running squadrons. Only one player had bombers, and he beat me in the finals.