While at the Fargo Regional this past weekend I decided to try somthing crazy, but just crazy enough to where it might work. My fleet:

Josiah --- [ REBEL FLEET (400 points)
1 • Assault Frigate Mark II A - Admiral Ackbar - Gunnery Team - Quad Laser Turrets - Cluster Bombs - Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (143)
2 • Assault Frigate Mark II A - Gunnery Team - Quad Laser Turrets - Cluster Bombs - Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (105)
3 • Assault Frigate Mark II A - Gunnery Team - Quad Laser Turrets - Cluster Bombs - Turbolaser Reroute Circuits (105)
4 • GR-75 Medium Transports - Toryn Farr - Comms Net (27)
5 • GR-75 Medium Transports - Comms Net (20)
6 • Objectives - Most Wanted - Contested Outpost - Intel Sweep

I ended up 4th out of 15. It was a 3 way tie for 2-4th, and I had the lowest MoV. I did, however, win all three games!!

My idea was to ignore the squadron game entirely, and use overwhelming firepower to deter and destroy attacking squadrons. I faced two Rieekan aces lists, and a light squadron Imperial list. I fared better against both aces lists (7-4, 8-3) than against the other imperial list (6-5). The combination of Cluster Bombs, Toryn QLTs, and Assault Frigate A anti-squadron dice did massive damage. I killed 10 squadrons (6-7 aces) without any of my own.

I don't care to do a detailed AAR, but some quick highlights: Luke had a bad day. I had two separate opponents blank multiple times on Luke and either be out of BCC range or blank on the reroll. These whiffs even with Adar + Yavaris cannot be understated! Cluster bombs made sure Luke only got one round of fire in both times combined with QLTs and anti-squadron finishers. Comms net have grown on me very much. Concentrate fire tokens were very handy for fickle red dice.

The main issue I have with Cluster Bombs is that once a ship burns it, it will be the only target of squadrons until it goes down. This isn't even restrictive, since focus fire is key to Armada anyway. They are, however, extremely potent to threaten key pieces of your opponent's fleet. They can also be used as a deterrent. If only one of your ships has cluster bombs, that most likely won't be the first target for enemy squadrons; I even had a game where the token imperial squadrons ignored my assault frigates since it would have been certain doom to try to do even contribute some damage.

While the no squadron approach worked for me, I almost always lost an assault frigate, which makes it harder to win with the margin you need to make the top, at least in a three round event. That said, I did manage to weather Yavaris powered B-Wings! While still not my favorite card, I might need to take a closer look at cluster bombs in the heavy fighter future.

Special thanks to Sean and Bill for the donation of the extra cluster bombs! Without you this wouldn't have happened!

JJ - question based on my own personal experiences with QLT:

Is it actually good? Or is it only good when you don't face Rhymer? Perhaps it's because of the Imperial tilt to games I normally play, but I have found them very underwhelming as a general statement because of the range 1 restriction.

I go back and forth on it for this reason.

Well, I didn't face a Rhymerball, which would put a damper on things. Hopefully cluster bombs and AA would kill Rhymer quickly (or at least keep him from shooting. With Toryn I like QLTs overall, though I have no idea at all why they decided to buff Rhymer more by adding that restriction to QLTs......

Well, I didn't face a Rhymerball, which would put a damper on things. Hopefully cluster bombs and AA would kill Rhymer quickly (or at least keep him from shooting. With Toryn I like QLTs overall, though I have no idea at all why they decided to buff Rhymer more by adding that restriction to QLTs......

In my mind, Toryn is what PDR should have been. As far as QLT restriction goes, I assume as they were released in Wave2 (i.e. right after Gencon special), they were too afraid of ship-only meta.

Good thoughts.

My sense on Cluster Bombs is that because they are discard effect, players tend to shy away from them. We can see these hesitancy with other upgrades. It took quite a while for people to warm up to Lando. And we had posts very early in wave-2 where some forum posters wondered why anyone would take him. Now we know he's very good. The key for Cluster Bombs is that you're looking to trade up in the squadron game by investing significantly less than your opponent into that aspect of the game. That means that sometimes you won't see much use out of them. And that's ok. That's no different from other upgrades out there.

Defensive Retrofits are "meta" upgrades, which specific upgrades or unit choices counter. Intel Officer or the lack of a list that depends upon accuracies means that ECM didn't really help. The reason why we jump to ECM first is because we all remember the time that we freed up the brace to cut the really big shot from 8 to 4. We don't remember the entire breadth of a game where the opponent chipped at us for 3 damage or didn't bring any accuracies. XI7 versus Advanced Projectors. Redundant Shields are a generic catch-all, but also the most expensive, and you need at least 3 rounds of regen to make back your points. Cluster Bombs are great when you can trade up on really expensive squads.

In terms of combing, I've long thought that CB needed a few squads of your own to follow up and finish off that squad that was damaged by the CB.

Yeah, I guess if all you are taking in a match is bomber damage then ya, cluster bombs are way better than ecm at that point.... Interesting... though I suppose AP might be even better than cluster bombs versus bombers, though an eng token can really do a lot of what AP does if you live to activate... I can see it! Too bad imps don't have cheaper defensive retrofits, I might give it a shot

I did put cluster bombs on Admonition once, in a list made to go first and kill stuff, MC30 style.

I then pitted it against a 2-ISD Rhymerball.

It kind of helped, in that I was able to flank more aggressively, and only take fire from 4 TIE bombers, since Rhymer didn't want to play.

Combined with MM and Admonition, I was able to close and do horrible, horrible damage without Admo taking too much dmg.

But I think that even without CB, Admo would have weathered the storm.

However, there are other good CB targets beyond Rhymer. Boba Fett, for example, or some other ace with nothing better to do than plink at you with a single blue or black nonbomber.

So I got the feeling that CB could have a place, on certain ships (MC30) in certain lists, given the number of squadrons out there.

On the flip side, look at JJs winning list - CB would do PRACTICALLY NOTHING against the Y-swarm.

Conclusion: more testing is needed.

Can you use defense tokens against Cluster Bombs?

Can you use defense tokens against Cluster Bombs?

No.

All things considered, I think 5 pts is a little too steep a price tag, given that it eats the coveted Def retro slot.

4 pts would have been more reasonable. I'd be tempted to say 3 pts, but that might be making it too cheap.

Yeah, lower the cost by much and suddenly every CR90 has it.

Yeah I think clusters are a bit over maligned, although this is probably understandable considering where we were at in the game when they first arrived (so long ago almost 12 months!).

They are never going to find a place on your ISD2, but I think they may well find a home on corvettes and MC30s and even the arquitens. Good against the rhymer ball but as Green Knight pointed out, a drop in the ocean against the Y wing horde.

On a seperate note, I think QLTs are valid. Ive had people break off their attack on my ISD having weathered the 2 blue anti squad. Especially funny when Yavaris boosted keyan is too scared to double bomb you.

Yeah, lower the cost by much and suddenly every CR90 has it.

Indeed. So that's why I landed on 4. But then again, FFG probably playtested it on CR swarms, while I just played within myself inside my head

Good report - my question to JJ would be how much the cluster bombs actually contributed to the AA of that fleet. Just from looking through the list it seems that three Mk-II As would wreak havoc on squadrons with or without cluster bombs.

Probably quite a lot Hese- imagine using it on three different bwings and getting the average 3 damage on each- thats suddenly 3 bombers you are exposing to death from just one AA shot.

Do you risk 14 points for just one shot against a ship? Or do you run them away? Thats a significant amount of points to just hand out for ~2 damage.

They add even more if its an ace.

Good report - my question to JJ would be how much the cluster bombs actually contributed to the AA of that fleet. Just from looking through the list it seems that three Mk-II As would wreak havoc on squadrons with or without cluster bombs.

They end up being a deterrent to taking random shots at ships who haven't used the cluster bombs yet. However the cluster bombs are very effective for taking out a high priority target, aces especially. So while only one or two might trigger in a game, that 5-7 damage can make all the difference if its on the right target.

I tried telling people bombs were good. But none listened. Ace's hate them. Bombers hate them.

Well, I didn't face a Rhymerball, which would put a damper on things. Hopefully cluster bombs and AA would kill Rhymer quickly (or at least keep him from shooting. With Toryn I like QLTs overall, though I have no idea at all why they decided to buff Rhymer more by adding that restriction to QLTs......

This is, essentially, my experience. The Rhymerballs I most frequently encounter are either Rhymer + 6 Firesprays or Rhymer + other stuff + TIE Bombers. In those cases, when Cluster Bombs are out there, Rhymer himself doesn't fire (or only fires once his ability doesn't matter in a huge tangle). It's just easy to avoid that effect with him, and what really matters about him is handing out the effect.

As others said, those are also less good against Y-spam (and B-spam, though at least they can trade up there). I really do think AF2A + Toryn is an underrated combo, though, and QLT + Toryn is interesting enough I feel like I have to think through the utilization of that.

Probably quite a lot Hese- imagine using it on three different bwings and getting the average 3 damage on each- thats suddenly 3 bombers you are exposing to death from just one AA shot.

Do you risk 14 points for just one shot against a ship? Or do you run them away? Thats a significant amount of points to just hand out for ~2 damage.

They add even more if its an ace.

That is the question - the situation which you depict is not very likely to ever happen. With B-Wings, one would focus the bombing on one of the three Mk-IIs and one poor sod just would have to take the one-shot clusterbomb to the groin.

I agree that deters aces much more from bombing anything, but I have not seen to many ace-heavy or ace-only bomberwings so far. With Rhymerballs, as Reinholt mentioned, you usually only keep Rhymer himself from bombing a ship with clusterbombs on. And rebell bomberwings usually consist of generic B-/Y-wings in my area..

I love lists that think outside the box! Very interesting, and if I had 3 Assault Fregate, I might give it a try myself. Thanks for posting it!

Probably quite a lot Hese- imagine using it on three different bwings and getting the average 3 damage on each- thats suddenly 3 bombers you are exposing to death from just one AA shot.

Do you risk 14 points for just one shot against a ship? Or do you run them away? Thats a significant amount of points to just hand out for ~2 damage.

They add even more if its an ace.

That is the question - the situation which you depict is not very likely to ever happen. With B-Wings, one would focus the bombing on one of the three Mk-IIs and one poor sod just would have to take the one-shot clusterbomb to the groin.

I agree that deters aces much more from bombing anything, but I have not seen to many ace-heavy or ace-only bomberwings so far. With Rhymerballs, as Reinholt mentioned, you usually only keep Rhymer himself from bombing a ship with clusterbombs on. And rebell bomberwings usually consist of generic B-/Y-wings in my area..

This is exactly how it does play out, and based on what you say, this definitely not a great list choice for your meta. However the most comment rebel list type at worlds seemed to be Rieekan aces. I'm still going to play around with this idea some more, and possibly do some revisions. I will say that three 2 Blue anti-squadron shots backed by Toryn can make even the bravest of bombers back off. The problem is you usually lose one frigate in the trade, though you might kill 100+ points of squadrons.

That is a neat list. I think I'll have to try it.

I haven't gotten any real use out of cluster bombs yet but maybe we just don't have the right squads in the game yet. I'm wondering if some of the new aces from the campaign or squads from wave 5 could make them useful. With wave 5 the rebels could start running swarms of the Lancer squad - looks to have 4 HP, bomber, rogue, grit, and I would guess a decent point cost. If those become really common it would be perfect conditions for cluster bombs to finally be worthwhile.

I'll stand by my Cluster Bomb feat of killing Rhymer in one activation with a CR90.....Rhymer shoots, clusters do some bombing, land 4 hits, and then the CR90 activates and anti-squads Rhymer to death. I will definitely be considering further revisions.