So I've tried making a few Madine lists, and every time I find myself dropping him for someone else. I've tried him a few times, and, while he certainly makes driving easier, I can't help feeling like he doesn't actually add any... "throughput," for lack of a better term.

For example, I'm running a lot of Mothma and some Sato ideas right now. Mothma gives me an absolute improvement to my ships because she increases the effectiveness of my defense tokens. There is only so much I can do tactically to keep my ships from getting shot at from medium/close range, so she is an increase in defensive "throughout." Similarly, Sato of course increases my offensive throughput by giving me better dice.

I can't find anything that Madine brings to the table that simply flying better wouldn't. Maybe it's just my outlook or the way I think about fleet building, so I guess the question is twofold:

1) Are you using Madine as a crutch to make it easier get ships in position because you didn't predict where you wanted to be early enough, or is there some specific tactic or other thing that he allows you to do that can't be done without him?

2) How do you quantify and assess the impact that an admiral has on your fleet's combat effectiveness?

So I've tried making a few Madine lists, and every time I find myself dropping him for someone else. I've tried him a few times, and, while he certainly makes driving easier, I can't help feeling like he doesn't actually add any... "throughput," for lack of a better term.

For example, I'm running a lot of Mothma and some Sato ideas right now. Mothma gives me an absolute improvement to my ships because she increases the effectiveness of my defense tokens. There is only so much I can do tactically to keep my ships from getting shot at from medium/close range, so she is an increase in defensive "throughout." Similarly, Sato of course increases my offensive throughput by giving me better dice.

I can't find anything that Madine brings to the table that simply flying better wouldn't. Maybe it's just my outlook or the way I think about fleet building, so I guess the question is twofold:

1) Are you using Madine as a crutch to make it easier get ships in position because you didn't predict where you wanted to be early enough, or is there some specific tactic or other thing that he allows you to do that can't be done without him?

2) How do you quantify and assess the impact that an admiral has on your fleet's combat effectiveness?

1) Less a crutch and more a simple improvement to the movement dial of every ship in your fleet. We all know it's very difficult to navigate a VSD, because of how little yaw it has. Well, an MC30 at speed 4 isn't much better. It has only 2 yaw, spread across the 2nd and 3rd clicks. Imagine you could add up to 3! more yaw to that, for 5 total clicks. You could put that MC30 in places it's not supposed to go. While this ability can be used as a crutch for someone who hasn't planned their movements ahead of time, a skilled player can use this to develop and exploit positions which otherwise wouldn't be possible.

This kind of skill is something I think requires time to learn. If you've spend the past 2 years playing with certain navigational limitations built in, you'll need a bit of play-time with those limitations removed before you can fully appreciate the options you now have available.

2)If those extra yaw put my ship just outside the front arc of that ISD because the extra click let me be parallel with the arc line instead of crossing it, that's a pretty measurable and big impact. If I was able to double arc after swinging around to the rear of the VSD instead of just getting a broadside, that's a measurable impact.

I agree that I mostly end up thinking there is a better option than Madine even in my casual play. The one place where I find him mostly irreplaceable is in my Liberty and 2x AFMkII or MC30 lists. He makes the Liberty sing and double arcs plentiful... although swapping him for Sato and changing up that big front arc with some black dice is on my to-do list.

It's nothing to count on, and it could also probably be figured out and stopped as it sees more play, but in our campaign the Madine fleet handled the new Navigational Hazards objective like a spring breeze.

I look at Madine the same way I look at Moff Jerjerrod. It makes it harder to determine your opponents movements. I have experienced it first hand after my last match with JJ's Juggernauts and viewing his other two matches in the Vassal World Cup. I had two mc30's in position to drop his ISD, but using Moff plus ramming his own ships, JJ was able to maneuver his ships in ways I didn't see coming. I think that if you were to have Madine on your 4xMC30 build, your opponents would have the same problems. You many not see the difference, but you come to realize that your options open way up when you have basically all the yaw you could ask for when you move. Being able to fly mc30's and cr90's at speed 4 without worrying about flying off the table is a big advantage that is under valued in the game. Yes, I will admit that learning to fly your ships better without Madine gives you the benefit of choosing other admirals to give you a boost in other areas, but personally, you give Madine or Moff to a user who already flies his ships great, makes them an even harder target to hit.

In my experience Madine is a soild choice for Liberty lists (I ran a double-Liberty list with and without Madine and he makes a significant difference there). I don't have enough experience running other rebel ships to vouch for his performance in other lists.

Madine is a little bit of Chaos in an otherwise Ordered System.

Unfortunately, for me, I have so few opponents who it would radically effect.. And I don't mean to diss my opponents at all - I mean, against me, it doesn't make a big deal... But I'm not the sort of person who is able to visualise all the potential positions where I oculd go, and move accordingly...

There are players like that.

And Madine is hell on them... Absolutely and utter hell, because he ramps up the amount of possibilities to an outrageous level....

I think J(er)J(errod) has a significant edge over Madine in not having to actually do a nav command, so no amount of screwing with someone's dials will ever shut JJ down, and let's be honest, two clicks on the first has the most impactful effect than any other joint with regard to where you'll end up. Oh, and he's 23 points and not 30

That said, Madine is still fun. One thing I found while using Madine is often I didn't need/want to use his extra clicks. So, to use him more effectively, I guess he'd be good if you deploy with him in mind, sort of the take your opponent off guard. He seems to really like Libs, 30s, and 90s as these gain the most from him. The most effective use I've had is comms netting tokens over to things that I could use for yaw or speed. The way I assess a commander is how much leverage I am gaining for the use of his or her ability, and for Madine the answer always seems to be pretty good okay.

By playing dodonna trololololol!

I think JJ has a significant edge over Madine in not having to actually do a nav command, so no amount of screwing with someone's dials will ever shut JJ down, and let's be honest, two clicks on the first has the most impactful effect than any other joint with regard to where you'll end up. Oh, and he's 23 points and not 30

That said, Madine is still fun. One thing I found while using Madine is often I didn't need/want to use his extra clicks. So, to use him more effectively, I guess he'd be good if you deploy with him in mind, sort of the take your opponent off guard. He seems to really like Libs, 30s, and 90s as these gain the most from him. The most effective use I've had is comms netting tokens over to things that I could use for yaw or speed. The way I assess a commander is how much leverage I am gaining for the use of his or her ability, and for Madine the answer always seems to be pretty good okay.

So I know you mean Jerjerrod but when you type JJ I read " 's Juggernaut" at the end in my head.

In that light I agree.

I fixed it!

I think JJ has a significant edge over Madine in not having to actually do a nav command, so no amount of screwing with someone's dials will ever shut JJ down, and let's be honest, two clicks on the first has the most impactful effect than any other joint with regard to where you'll end up. Oh, and he's 23 points and not 30

That said, Madine is still fun. One thing I found while using Madine is often I didn't need/want to use his extra clicks. So, to use him more effectively, I guess he'd be good if you deploy with him in mind, sort of the take your opponent off guard. He seems to really like Libs, 30s, and 90s as these gain the most from him. The most effective use I've had is comms netting tokens over to things that I could use for yaw or speed. The way I assess a commander is how much leverage I am gaining for the use of his or her ability, and for Madine the answer always seems to be pretty good okay.

This pretty much sums up my thoughts on him. I just haven't seen him contribute much absolute value that better tactical execution couldn't have also gotten you. But he's fun, and he's definitely not bad.

1) Are you using Madine as a crutch to make it easier get ships in position because you didn't predict where you wanted to be early enough, or is there some specific tactic or other thing that he allows you to do that can't be done without him?

2) How do you quantify and assess the impact that an admiral has on your fleet's combat effectiveness?

1) To answer the first part of your question, no, I don't use Madine as a crutch. To answer the second part, yes, there is a specific tactic. Ask me for details AFTER we play tonight in the World Cup. Or I can post another reply tomorrow.

2) Does it consistently give you an advantage over your opponent from an offensive angle? Does it allow you to counter something in your enemy's fleets consistently? Does it consistently allow you to force your opponent to choose the less worse of two bad choices? These three questions are all ones I ask myself about my admiral choices. The exceptions are of course Dodonna and Motti. Being the cheapest, sometimes they are just there because I have to pick someone.

While Jerry and Madine may look similar on paper, they're completely different in execution. Madine buffs a certain command, which you have to use in order to get his effect. Jerry gives you a similar benefit and has a notable cost to go with it, but he allows you to effectively ignore the navigate command. He's looking like a really good commander for squadron fleets of all things because you can maneuver well, while still spamming squadron commands. Still, he can fit into pretty much any type of build because his ability works regardless of command dial. Madine probably needs a ship heavy fleet to maximize the use of a single type of command.

I've only used him a few times but I like to bait my opponents with him. I'll have a Liberty looking like it's going to travel around the edge and leave an exposed flank, and then when my opponent goes for it WHAM, u-turn space drift and they're in the fron arc

I could write pages on my thoughts on each commander. But in short there are three main points I like to look at; cost, opportunity cost, and fleet opportunity cost. These can of course be broken down further but I've been alive long enough to know no one actually cares that in depth.

Long story short he fails two of those and ranks in the bottom half on the last point imo.

This is a thread that I simply cannot pass up. Ard knows me and has played my Madine list IRL, so I'm sure part of the post is simply gathering some thoughts and creating a stimulating discussion with the community.

First, I've got a detailed post over in the Battle Reports forum: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/237444-houston-regional-aar/

A lot of specific thoughts on my list and what went into creating it are over there. At least at the time, that was the first Madine list to crack the top 4 during the regional season. Arguably, you couldn't insert any other commander into that list and get it to work nearly as effectively. On the whole though, I think Madine requires a fairly tightly designed list to work for him. He's less plug-and-play than Rieekan, because a mistake in maneuvering is still a mistake in maneuvering. Madine doesn't fix that in the way that Rieekan can give a newer player an activation off of a badly placed ship, or that Dodonna gives you a nice to have ability that is fairly cheap, or that Ackbar gives players a sometimes illusory sense of power by clutching more dice in one's hand.

In short, I think the Liberty is the single ship that most benefits from Madine, and constructing a list around one is a huge bonus to the Liberty's ability to maneuver on a battlefield. Where the Liberty's side arc is not nearly as strong as an ISD, it really benefits from being able to keep its front arc on targets. From there, I think every other Rebel ship benefits significantly less from Madine, but its still a benefit nontheless. So you take a Liberty first and then build around it. One subtlety is that you don't really need Nav dials all the time. Because you gain yaw from a token, any nav tokens that you take suddenly provide that extra layer of flexibility. That's the key to Madine Corvettes and MC30s. I've played both in plenty of other lists. Sometimes you need the token. Sometimes you don't, but you often take it for the flexibility. Now imagine that you can also add yaw depending upon the situation. That's a really huge benefit to your flexibility.

Quantifying any commander is a pretty tough thing. I know, because I've spent quite a bit of time trying to come up with ways to quantify each commander. The many situations on the board really prevent this. Then most commanders have both offensive and defensive benefits. For example, Ackbar gives you two red dice out the side, but one ancillary benefit is that you're generally flying specifically for those side arcs and not double-arcing. This amounts to much more defensive flying. So Ackbar ends up being both offensive and defensive. So a couple of ways of looking at Madine: Did he help me get more shots, either double-arcs or major arcs like a LIberty's front arc over the course of a game? Did he help me dodge arcs? Did I get where my opponent could only get one arc instead of two, or lost one of his own major front arcs? In my own list, that answer was undoubtedly yes. I think Ard's own MC30 list is probably going to be no. Probably a lot of lists make the answer no.

As for results, I may have lost some games from time to time, but I've generally felt like that wasn't a fault of the list so much as my flying. There's always seemed to have been a path forward that I simply didn't take.

I think looking over the regional data that Rieekan and Dodonna predominate because they're very good generalists that fit a lot of different fleet archetypes and ships. Both also work very well with the squadron-heavy meta. Then Ackbar has always been a favorite and works well with several different ship types and is flexible in some of his builds. But once you step outside of them, it takes a pretty specific fleet to work with Mon Mothma (Ard's is excellent!), or with Cracken (WWPDSteven's list is well noted as great), or Madine (Mine). Garm finds himself Mr. Generic, but even Schmitty built a great list that worked well with Garm and his play-style, and I'm usually finding myself wanting the gimmicks of the others than Garm's generalist nature. But basically all of these commanders require much more specifically tailored lists. That requires skill that is usually not present when new players join the game, and I could see why people get discouraged with them or gravitate in the Rieekan/Ackbar/Dodonna direction. Wave 5 is still new, but since we've got a squadron-heavy meta at the tail end of wave-4, I'd say Sato fits into that fairly well since he just outright requires squadrons to activate his special ability. The ability is generalist enough to work with a lot of different ship types and the new units and objectives can fit really easily into a lot of lists. In short, I expect him to join Rieekan/Ackbar/Dodonna as part of the most played 4. The rest are likely to remain fairly niche.

I will conclude with a few thoughts on ideas that I think might work but I haven't seen tried:

1. Assault Frigates: Specifically A's that you're trying to double arc with. Forget the dial for a second, just having a token can easily turn make the difference between a single and double arc. That's easily enough done without Madine if you're aiming at really big targets, but if you make the AF a big last/first activation hitter, then a single click of yaw might be all you need to double-arc something smaller. Speaking of double-arcing with an Assault Frigate, I hear Paragon whistling in the other room.

2. Nebulon-B: Not sure with or without ET. I'd be curious if Speed-3 could suddenly put them in a lot of strange places on the map while keeping the front arc on whatever target you need it to. I ended up siding against one in incarnations in my list, but I don't think we've seen all the inventiveness possible with a Neb-B.

And a final thought on Madine's implications for other upgrades:

Maybe Nav Team in a non-Madine list is worth more than I've seen it played

This is a thread that I simply cannot pass up. Ard knows me and has played my Madine list IRL, so I'm sure part of the post is simply gathering some thoughts and creating a stimulating discussion with the community.

First, I've got a detailed post over in the Battle Reports forum: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/237444-houston-regional-aar/

A lot of specific thoughts on my list and what went into creating it are over there. At least at the time, that was the first Madine list to crack the top 4 during the regional season. Arguably, you couldn't insert any other commander into that list and get it to work nearly as effectively. On the whole though, I think Madine requires a fairly tightly designed list to work for him. He's less plug-and-play than Rieekan, because a mistake in maneuvering is still a mistake in maneuvering. Madine doesn't fix that in the way that Rieekan can give a newer player an activation off of a badly placed ship, or that Dodonna gives you a nice to have ability that is fairly cheap, or that Ackbar gives players a sometimes illusory sense of power by clutching more dice in one's hand.

In short, I think the Liberty is the single ship that most benefits from Madine, and constructing a list around one is a huge bonus to the Liberty's ability to maneuver on a battlefield. Where the Liberty's side arc is not nearly as strong as an ISD, it really benefits from being able to keep its front arc on targets. From there, I think every other Rebel ship benefits significantly less from Madine, but its still a benefit nontheless. So you take a Liberty first and then build around it. One subtlety is that you don't really need Nav dials all the time. Because you gain yaw from a token, any nav tokens that you take suddenly provide that extra layer of flexibility. That's the key to Madine Corvettes and MC30s. I've played both in plenty of other lists. Sometimes you need the token. Sometimes you don't, but you often take it for the flexibility. Now imagine that you can also add yaw depending upon the situation. That's a really huge benefit to your flexibility.

Quantifying any commander is a pretty tough thing. I know, because I've spent quite a bit of time trying to come up with ways to quantify each commander. The many situations on the board really prevent this. Then most commanders have both offensive and defensive benefits. For example, Ackbar gives you two red dice out the side, but one ancillary benefit is that you're generally flying specifically for those side arcs and not double-arcing. This amounts to much more defensive flying. So Ackbar ends up being both offensive and defensive. So a couple of ways of looking at Madine: Did he help me get more shots, either double-arcs or major arcs like a LIberty's front arc over the course of a game? Did he help me dodge arcs? Did I get where my opponent could only get one arc instead of two, or lost one of his own major front arcs? In my own list, that answer was undoubtedly yes. I think Ard's own MC30 list is probably going to be no. Probably a lot of lists make the answer no.

As for results, I may have lost some games from time to time, but I've generally felt like that wasn't a fault of the list so much as my flying. There's always seemed to have been a path forward that I simply didn't take.

I think looking over the regional data that Rieekan and Dodonna predominate because they're very good generalists that fit a lot of different fleet archetypes and ships. Both also work very well with the squadron-heavy meta. Then Ackbar has always been a favorite and works well with several different ship types and is flexible in some of his builds. But once you step outside of them, it takes a pretty specific fleet to work with Mon Mothma (Ard's is excellent!), or with Cracken (WWPDSteven's list is well noted as great), or Madine (Mine). Garm finds himself Mr. Generic, but even Schmitty built a great list that worked well with Garm and his play-style, and I'm usually finding myself wanting the gimmicks of the others than Garm's generalist nature. But basically all of these commanders require much more specifically tailored lists. That requires skill that is usually not present when new players join the game, and I could see why people get discouraged with them or gravitate in the Rieekan/Ackbar/Dodonna direction. Wave 5 is still new, but since we've got a squadron-heavy meta at the tail end of wave-4, I'd say Sato fits into that fairly well since he just outright requires squadrons to activate his special ability. The ability is generalist enough to work with a lot of different ship types and the new units and objectives can fit really easily into a lot of lists. In short, I expect him to join Rieekan/Ackbar/Dodonna as part of the most played 4. The rest are likely to remain fairly niche.

I will conclude with a few thoughts on ideas that I think might work but I haven't seen tried:

1. Assault Frigates: Specifically A's that you're trying to double arc with. Forget the dial for a second, just having a token can easily turn make the difference between a single and double arc. That's easily enough done without Madine if you're aiming at really big targets, but if you make the AF a big last/first activation hitter, then a single click of yaw might be all you need to double-arc something smaller. Speaking of double-arcing with an Assault Frigate, I hear Paragon whistling in the other room.

2. Nebulon-B: Not sure with or without ET. I'd be curious if Speed-3 could suddenly put them in a lot of strange places on the map while keeping the front arc on whatever target you need it to. I ended up siding against one in incarnations in my list, but I don't think we've seen all the inventiveness possible with a Neb-B.

And a final thought on Madine's implications for other upgrades:

Maybe Nav Team in a non-Madine list is worth more than I've seen it played

I think you and I could have great discussions about the rebel commanders. We could go for hours on just Ackbar!

I think you and I could have great discussions about the rebel commanders. We could go for hours on just Ackbar!

You're probably right. I appreciate learning a few things, and the best part about conversations with sharp minds is that I always come away with a better sense of the game.

I'm not sure we want to go on about Ackbar in this thread. I do keep some running PMs with forum members with whom I've met around the country, so if you're inclined and would like to bat ideas back and forth, feel free to drop me a line.

Ackbar gives players a sometimes illusory sense of power

But seriously, thanks for the well-thought-out reply. You are correct that I'm mostly fishing for discussion, because, while I don't know how to do it myself, I do think Madine has amazing potential to be exploited. I mean, I've seen him used well by you and Pedro both (and now by Comatose), but I'm not sure even so that I've seen him pushed quite to his potential. So, I'm trawling for ideas.

He's still on my list to try...but hasn't been able to make the cut yet. It always feels like he either needs a specific list, or that I can get better benifit from other commanders. After playing JerJer, I'm bumping Madine up on my list of things to use but I'm a little concerned. Like others have mentioned, JerJer is cheaper, and doesn't require a certain command to use.

Ackbar gives players a sometimes illusory sense of power

But seriously, thanks for the well-thought-out reply. You are correct that I'm mostly fishing for discussion, because, while I don't know how to do it myself, I do think Madine has amazing potential to be exploited. I mean, I've seen him used well by you and Pedro both (and now by Comatose), but I'm not sure even so that I've seen him pushed quite to his potential. So, I'm trawling for ideas.

Nice photo! Haha!

One thing that resonated with me at GenCon was that the eventual winner, Norm, mentioned that Ozzel allowed him to go anywhere on his speed dial and ultimately control exactly where on the map the engagement was going to happen. Madine does a similar kind of thing in a slightly different way, and in my own list, I'm replicating some of that effect by using Raymus to stack them together. There's definitely something to be said for the unpredictability of maneuvering.

My sense is there is probably some kind of dual LIberty build out there that would work well, and it would probably have to be with Madine. There's also probably something a bit more squadron-centric that could work.

madine makes the liberty dance around and get behind enemy ships. But besides the liberty, I don't really feel like other ships can really use him. MC30s get their pass, CR90s don't need him, Nebs don't either and forget about speed 2 ships. Assault frigates maybe?

Ackbar gives players a sometimes illusory sense of power

But seriously, thanks for the well-thought-out reply. You are correct that I'm mostly fishing for discussion, because, while I don't know how to do it myself, I do think Madine has amazing potential to be exploited. I mean, I've seen him used well by you and Pedro both (and now by Comatose), but I'm not sure even so that I've seen him pushed quite to his potential. So, I'm trawling for ideas.

Nice photo! Haha!

One thing that resonated with me at GenCon was that the eventual winner, Norm, mentioned that Ozzel allowed him to go anywhere on his speed dial and ultimately control exactly where on the map the engagement was going to happen. Madine does a similar kind of thing in a slightly different way, and in my own list, I'm replicating some of that effect by using Raymus to stack them together. There's definitely something to be said for the unpredictability of maneuvering.

My sense is there is probably some kind of dual LIberty build out there that would work well, and it would probably have to be with Madine. There's also probably something a bit more squadron-centric that could work.

Except Madine is 50% more expensive than ozzel

... and its still counter-intuitive to attempt to compare things when all variables to use them are different.

I mean, it'd be easier to do if they were both on the same side. Or used the same ships. Or had the same effect. Or enabled the same sort of list...

Or, y'know, one of the above.

Except they both require using a nav command or token to trigger