Sato's ability to swap out up to two dice for any color or colors, so long as a squadron is at range one, is huge. I have been playing around with builds that let me throw black dice at long range. The two that have turned out to be the best are the Nebulon-B and the MC-30.

First up, I run my Neb-B Support Refit with a relatively standard loadout: TRC, and the Salvation title.

This little guy clocks in at 65pts and throws three red to the front. Couple that with the Sato swapout and you can throw up to one red and three black with the help of a Concentrate Fire dial. This, along with the Salvation title, can result in up to eleven total damage a turn, from doubling Crits, if you roll perfect.

Second to the table is my MC-30 Scout Frigate. I run it with at least: Foresight, Spinal Armament, Ordinance Experts, and Assault Proton Torps.

This setup let's you sling out from the front and sides up to three black dice at long range after the Sato Swapout and Concentrate Fire. The gimmick here is getting the OE rerolls and the long range APT critical.

I usually run these two ships along with any of the four MC-80 variants and fill the points with Biggs and other X-wings. However, TRC-90s run like Champs in this list, as with almost any list they go in.

Has anyone else tried these builds with Sato? Any thoughts or critiques are appreciated.

I'm in the process of polishing a Sato list but what I figured out is thst an MC30 doesn't need Sato. And more importantly Sato doesn't really need an MC30. Why go up close when you can throw blacks from long range With several small ships?

My reasoning for including the MC30, as I said above, is being able to throw up to a potential three black dice at long range while utilizing Assault Proton Torpedoes and Ordnance Experts. I personally like the MC30 as it is a tanky small ship, one of only two Rebel ship that can currently take Ordnance upgrades like APT, and the only Rebel ship that can take Ordnance upgrades and make use of Ordnance Experts.

Sato does not need the MC30 but an MC30 is useful in just about any list you put it in, especially with Sato. I did not mean to infer that this was the only way to make an MC30 viable. It is, however, the only Rebel option for long range APT with Ordnance Expert rerolls. The only other current stock source of black dice in the Rebel fleet is one variant of the Pelta. Even then, that ship cannot take a Weapons Team so cannot benefit from OE.

I do not plan to move in close with my Sato fleet. However, as the Imperials can be black dice heavy, my normal opponents do plan to get close. The MC30 gives lots of nice options at range and has the added bonus of being able to roll up to six (6!) black dice from a single arc when it does get within close range, all benefitting from Ordnance Experts. This six dice, face up card dealing, beast is enough to give my opponents pause when choosing whether to move in close or not.

I hope this answers you question.

I'm not certain I'd want TRC on my Salvation or CR 90 with Sato. On the corvette you don't have enough dice to take advantage of the swap at red range. On Salvation I think I'd prefer XI7 to really force that black dice damage to one shield zone. Sato Nebs I already tend to target early because of their damage spike potential and they really like having that evade to keep from just getting pinged by flanker units.

Do like the MC30 with Sato. Long distance APT is nasty.

That's a good point about the TRCs, I haven't really thought about it that way. I'm just accustomed to the TRC-90 being my go to setup. I might just roll those points into more squadrons or other upgrades for existing ships.