Hi all,

I'm slowly starting to play more Armada, after having mainly collected the ships for a while. I usually like playing bomber wing lists, but I thought I want to give the liberator class MC80 a go.

I came up with the list below, but I'm not sure if I'm heading in the right direction. I got some squadrons to screen my fleet from enemy bombers, and couldn't help but to still include Yavaris for some support.

I also added a transport to keep my activations at four. The main damage will come from the MC80 and Salvation. I would have liked to have an initiative bid, but I couldn't find anything that I wanted to cut from the list; quite the contrary, I think the list doesn't have all the upgrades I would have liked.

Any thoughts?

Frontal assault list
Author: Antikos

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 400/400

Commander: General Dodonna

Assault Objective: Opening Salvo
Defense Objective: Fire Lanes
Navigation Objective: Minefields

[ flagship ] MC80 Battle Cruiser (103 points)
- General Dodonna ( 20 points)
- Intel Officer ( 7 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Heavy Turbolaser Turrets ( 6 points)
= 143 total ship cost

Nebulon-B Support Refit (51 points)
- Salvation ( 7 points)
- Intel Officer ( 7 points)
- Slaved Turrets ( 6 points)
= 71 total ship cost

Nebulon-B Escort Frigate (57 points)
- Yavaris ( 5 points)
- Toryn Farr ( 7 points)
= 69 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Bright Hope ( 2 points)
- Repair Crews ( 4 points)
= 24 total ship cost

1 Tycho Celchu ( 16 points)
2 A-Wing Squadrons ( 22 points)
1 YT-2400 ( 16 points)
1 Shara Bey ( 17 points)
1 Ketsu Onyo ( 22 points)

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Fleet created with Armada Warlords

I'd recommend Sato and spinal armaments if you can on the mc80 and even the Salvation. Leads to some nasty powered up shots at long range and even worse up close.

I'm running that version in a cc campaign and loving it so far. Though I swapped out the second neb b you have for a Pelta class as its a bit better protected and still a hard hitter (no yavaris though sadly)

What's the advantage of spinal armaments over slaved turrets or dual turbolaser turrets? Is it just to allow ships to double arc?

Do I see it correctly that Sato would replace two of my reds with two blacks for best effect?

He's quite pricey though, I would need to cut down some cost elsewhere.

Which Pelta would you use? My first thought would be the command ship for squad 3 and blue dice instead of black. And Toryn Farr for better fighter efficiency.

Spinal Armament is mainly for a harder frontal attack while still allowing double arc.

And you are right with Sato. As long as you can get that fighter in the right spot (Tycho is great for this) you can swap two of your red dice for 2 dice of any other color. Then if you concentrate fire you can add one more dice of the new color.

My mc80 was throwing out 9 dice a shot at medium range, 3 red, 3 blue, 3 black. Added up to some big hits. Salvation Neb does well with it too with crits counting as 2 damage so it loves throwing blacks at long range.

Command Pelta is nice. I went with the assault Pelta mainly because I was pushing less fighters and wanted more AA fire to balance it (plus it was cheaper)

First, I like your squadron make-up. You've got some good defensive squads in the numbers that can slow down an enemy with Ketsu and grind them down with counter over a number of turns.

Thoughts on different units:

Bright Hope: Most everyone I know finds Repair crews underwhelming. The activation range is really close to your own ship, and its hard to fly that well enough to get it to trigger. A more generic comms net might do the job better. This only represents a slight point savings.

Yavaris: I don't think you're getting everything out of Yavaris that you could. I find that Yavaris is better with squads that hit enemy squads harder or with heavy bombers like B-wings or H6s. Toryn definitely fits the list, but can just as easily go on Bright Hope. If you're looking for points-saving, then downgrading to TRC90 Jaina's Light picks up another 9 points.

Salvation: I really dislike losing the possibility of a double-arc or of taking even a single die AS shot. That's the real problem with Slaved Turrets. Spinal is definitely an improvement over them, but honestly, the new DTT would seem to fit the best.

BattleCruiser: Unless you've got a lot of Brace effects in your meta, then HTT is not really what you want. First, I think Leading Shots absolutely has to be the first adjustment upgrade you take here. You need some way at blue range to make sure those shots really do damage. That's your hedge against bad rolls. Xi7 for the same price as HTT is a great choice. Spinal, as mentioned above is good. If you want to go an accuracy route instead of Intel Officer, then H9 is great, and maybe more efficient if you want to take one of your gunnery shots at a flotilla. The real trouble is, as you say, there really aren't a lot of places you can free up additional points in this list.

In the end, I found that TRC90s were basically as damage efficient as a Salvation Nebulon-B, but you got a greater point savings for hardly any real reduction in survivability. If anything, their tendency to move at higher speeds with great maneuverability means that they dodge arcs and get out of fire well.

That should be of some help in decided how to revise from here. Best of luck!

Thanks both of you. That's some great advice, not just for this particular list, but my understanding of Armada in general.

Some random replies:

I usually used CR90 as support, harassment and objective ships (love Jaina's Light), but I guess I've been underestimating their offensive power.

Funnily enough, I already exchanged Slaved Turrets with DTT on Salvation when I was playing around with the list.

I'm mainly playing a friend (Empire) who is also learning the game as we go. So there is no real meta.

I guess Xi7 meshes better with Intel Officer. I can intel the brace, and redirect is negated by Xi7. I like leading shots and Sato looks amazing, but where to take the points for it I don't know.

I could reduce my fighter screen, but I have a feeling that my opponent might bring a bomber heavy list for a change, since I had great success with one in our last game.

Will do some more list juggling

Edit:

How important is it to have intel officer on either ship?

Edit:

How important is it to have intel officer on either ship?

You don't need them period. They help if you don't expect to kill a target quick and you want to wear down its tokens. I prefer just focus firing things down quick over a turn or 2 but admittedly it doesn't always work out.

Consider looking into the Mon Karren title on the mc80 and h9 turbo lasers. That's what I'm running in my campaign we just got going. Accuracy used to eliminate the brace or scatter and the title stops them from stacking other defense tokens (only 1 type able to be used).

I'd say the h9 aren't needed normally but the first time a Flotilla survives a 9 damage shot because you didn't roll a single accuracy means you will want it (leading shoto may be more efficient though)

Here is the version I'll probably take to the table for a test game.

I don't expect to see many flotillas, at the most one. So I'm going with leading shot. I was trying to decide between Xi7 and spinal armament and decided to go with the second for now.

Frontal assault list V2
Author: Antikos

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 399/400

Commander: Commander Sato

Assault Objective: Opening Salvo
Defense Objective: Fire Lanes
Navigation Objective: Minefields

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Bright Hope ( 2 points)
- Toryn Farr ( 7 points)
= 27 total ship cost

[ flagship ] MC80 Battle Cruiser (103 points)
- Commander Sato ( 32 points)
- Mon Karren ( 8 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Spinal Armament ( 9 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 163 total ship cost

Nebulon-B Support Refit (51 points)
- Salvation ( 7 points)
- Dual Turbolaser Turrets ( 5 points)
= 63 total ship cost

CR90 Corvette A (44 points)
- Jainas Light ( 2 points)
- Turbolaser Reroute Circuits ( 7 points)
= 53 total ship cost

1 Tycho Celchu ( 16 points)
2 A-Wing Squadrons ( 22 points)
1 Shara Bey ( 17 points)
1 YT-2400 ( 16 points)
1 Ketsu Onyo ( 22 points)

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Fleet created with Armada Warlords