I've had some minor success with sato at the local level, I wanna keep working it to see if I can come up with a semi-viable tournament list. This list is designed to hit with bombers/wrexly and get tycho where he needs to be for sato to proc using the 2 Gr 75s. long range ACMs off both the 30s throwing 3 black a shot with rerolls... and a salvation hammer to come in and finish the job...


Any advice would be welcome.

spreadshot
Author: Darth Sanguis

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 392/400

Commander: Commander Sato

Assault Objective: Most Wanted
Defense Objective: Hyperspace Assault
Navigation Objective: Superior Positions

[ flagship ] MC30c Scout Frigate (69 points)
- Commander Sato ( 32 points)
- Foresight ( 8 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Assault Concussion Missiles ( 7 points)
= 120 total ship cost

MC30c Scout Frigate (69 points)
- Admonition ( 8 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Advanced Projectors ( 6 points)
- Assault Concussion Missiles ( 7 points)
= 94 total ship cost

Nebulon-B Support Refit (51 points)
- Salvation ( 7 points)
- Turbolaser Reroute Circuits ( 7 points)
= 65 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
- Jamming Field ( 2 points)
= 24 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
- Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 24 total ship cost

1 Tycho Celchu ( 16 points)
1 Norra Wexley ( 17 points)
2 Y-Wing Squadrons ( 20 points)
1 HWK-290 ( 12 points)

No escort, very few bombers.

That squadron wing does not match your description at all.

Do the scouts need defensive upgrades if they are at range?

DTT on Salvation. Lets you "reroll" the black dice. TRC does not.

I think points wise one of the scouts needs to be a pelta or a hammerhead so you can get the squad wing you want.

I don't think your squadron wing syncs up well with what you want to do with the rest of the list. You're likely to shed most of your squadrons as points against anyone that is working to kill squads. I do like the core of your list though.

12 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

No escort, very few bombers.

That squadron wing does not match your description at all.

Do the scouts need defensive upgrades if they are at range?

DTT on Salvation. Lets you "reroll" the black dice. TRC does not.

I think points wise one of the scouts needs to be a pelta or a hammerhead so you can get the squad wing you want.

I'm sorry, I don't understand. Which way doesn't my fighter wing match my description?

I only put a defensive on Admonition... previous experiences have left me in situations where having that extra redirect flexibility has been helpful. (Actually helped me weather 2 hits from a demo in a game I played this weekend) is it a bad idea to do so?

Again, I'm sorry if I don't understand, how does DTTs get me black rerolls? As far as I understand it simply adds a red and makes me remove a die.

What hat kind of squad wing am I looking for? My experience locally has been very successful using what I have, but I'm always interested in improving it.

9 hours ago, Vergilius said:

I don't think your squadron wing syncs up well with what you want to do with the rest of the list. You're likely to shed most of your squadrons as points against anyone that is working to kill squads. I do like the core of your list though.

Is there a better combo that would work in my favor? (I've been using these fighters to a good level of success, but I'm definitely open to better ideas lol).

Re DTT, For TRC's to work you actually have to roll a red dice, however with Sato you want to be switching to black dice. So why use TRC's? With DTT if you get a poor black dice you can add a red and potentially roll something better.

I see Admonition and Foresight titles as defensive upgrades! Amazing upgrades, defensive nonetheless. Looking at your list, I have to wonder if you could do better simply by navigating out of danger?

With the squadron wing, its a tiny squadron wing. Add at least 50pts to it and it will match your description, and this would be a beautiful list. Sadly we dont have 450pts.

Without eating into your bid I see 23 potential points you might be able to get.

Nix- boosted coms, jamming field, advanced projectors, and turbolaser reroutes.

All of those are convenience upgrades primarily that make your list harder to use but not necessarily decrease effectiveness.

That frees up space for either a heavy bomber ace like keyan that synergizes super well with norra and acms and will add a big chunk of squadron health and tokens to the list, or go fo 2 generic ys which just add a ton of hull. Both options let you optionally add back in jamming to keep them alive longer, but it makes you super vulnerable to having your intel sniped because jamming will hurt you more that it helps if you are forced to deal with an opponents fighters

8 hours ago, Darth Sanguis said:

Is there a better combo that would work in my favor? (I've been using these fighters to a good level of success, but I'm definitely open to better ideas lol).

I was going with the same theme as Ginkapo's comments, which is to say when someone tells me they want to use bombers, I expect to see a whole lot more in the force.

Here's your basic problem. You're 2-3 squad attacks away from losing your Intel, depending upon what the opponent brings. Once that happens, your bombers are tied up and cannot attack. You've still got Tycho to help trigger Sato. Its just against most well-played squadron wings, I see you having a very hard time pulling off attacks according to the argument laid out in your first post.

Start with the 23 points that Broba recommends cutting, and make some adjustments to the squads. One escort could keep the Intel alive, which keeps the squadrons attacking ships much longer. For as many bombers as you have, picking up a BCC wouldn't hurt either.

11 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

Re DTT, For TRC's to work you actually have to roll a red dice, however with Sato you want to be switching to black dice. So why use TRC's? With DTT if you get a poor black dice you can add a red and potentially roll something better.

I see Admonition and Foresight titles as defensive upgrades! Amazing upgrades, defensive nonetheless. Looking at your list, I have to wonder if you could do better simply by navigating out of danger?

With the squadron wing, its a tiny squadron wing. Add at least 50pts to it and it will match your description, and this would be a beautiful list. Sadly we dont have 450pts.

I see, that's not a bad idea. Currently a standard roll out the front of salvation is 3 red... Sato let's me change 2 to black, and a confire gives me a 3rd leaving a single red. My train of thought being I can always TRC for more damage with that red I'm stick with.

I played this fleet over the weekend and tabled two players. I found myself using first player advantage to last/first at long/close with great success. However, my deployment put admonition in trouble during one match where demo got off two full shots... without the title and the defense upgrade it would've been dust. My question would be, is it more well rounded for a learning player to have these defensive cards while they're learning or will the fleet be better off losing defense upgrades for better fighters?

The defenses of course make for more forgiving ships, but that can backfire and have them end up being wasted points.

Advanced projectors are weak to accuracies, xi7 and like h9, home 1, jonus the force accuracies.

Rbd means your ship is weak to being one turn blowed up, which can happen to just about anything.

Ecm is weak to simply running out of tokens, once they are all discarded its not doing anything.

If you bring the right defense, you can shut your opponent down. Take the wrong one and you will wish you had just brought an extra squadron.

And i think thats the point. You will never be sad you brought an extra x-wing, but there will be times you are sad you brought your defenses. So in my mind, they get replaced really quickly.

That said, my tournament list features a gozanti with ecms. So if you have a plan where they are essential, then follow that. But i generally think its the exception not the rule.

10 hours ago, BrobaFett said:

The defenses of course make for more forgiving ships, but that can backfire and have them end up being wasted points.

Advanced projectors are weak to accuracies, xi7 and like h9, home 1, jonus the force accuracies.

Rbd means your ship is weak to being one turn blowed up, which can happen to just about anything.

Ecm is weak to simply running out of tokens, once they are all discarded its not doing anything.

If you bring the right defense, you can shut your opponent down. Take the wrong one and you will wish you had just brought an extra squadron.

And i think thats the point. You will never be sad you brought an extra x-wing, but there will be times you are sad you brought your defenses. So in my mind, they get replaced really quickly.

That said, my tournament list features a gozanti with ecms. So if you have a plan where they are essential, then follow that. But i generally think its the exception not the rule.

I see.

I guess that makes sense.

I have a version of this that's slightly different, more fighter based that excluded salvation to add some aces... It worked well against a player with less than 5 games, but I have yet to put it on the table for real.... do you think this one would be better suited?

kafkaesque
Author: Darth Sanguis

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 396/400

Commander: Commander Sato

Assault Objective: Most Wanted
Defense Objective: Hyperspace Assault
Navigation Objective: Superior Positions

[ flagship ] MC30c Scout Frigate (69 points)
- Commander Sato ( 32 points)
- Foresight ( 8 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Assault Concussion Missiles ( 7 points)
= 120 total ship cost

MC30c Scout Frigate (69 points)
- Admonition ( 8 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Advanced Projectors ( 6 points)
- Assault Concussion Missiles ( 7 points)
= 94 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
- Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 24 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
- Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 24 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
- Bomber Command Center ( 8 points)
= 30 total ship cost

1 Tycho Celchu ( 16 points)
1 Green Squadron ( 12 points)
1 Jan Ors ( 19 points)
1 Luke Skywalker ( 20 points)
1 Norra Wexley ( 17 points)
2 Y-Wing Squadrons ( 20 points)

This is pretty similar to the fleets that got 1st and 3rd at my local store championship. It's a solid design that can dish out lots of damage and if flown well can lead to big wins, which is great for tournaments. I think it looks super solid. If you love Salvation, then I don't think its a stretch to reach the 60 points-ish required by cutting a flotilla and one of the aces (probably Luke). It puts you in the ballpark if you felt like that was something you wanted to keep.

well, I'm sure you've seen my stance on squads in the past. I just don't like bringing clutters of them... I was hoping to be minimalist on the squadron front with my original fleet, and bring some ship threat. The problem is most of the players at my LGS are all like me, so I can't rightly count on them to properly represent squadron threat. I'll give the bottom one some table time too I suppose lol

It's still hardly a huge bomber wing

I on the other hand love squadrons. My MC30 fleet is the old 2x mc30 and 8x yt2400. Even in my missile boat fleets I take max squadrons.

Yes, the bottom list should be fine. You've got a good mix of tools there.

For minimalist squadrons, I've run Tycho/Shara/2x A-wings for a long time. I think that is about what the minimalist approach looks like. If you go less than that (some guys do), you can run into some pretty hard counters. A minimalist approach to squadrons means that your first goal with your squads is to tie up and kill the opposing squads as efficiently as possible, and currently nothing does that more efficiently than A-wings. There's also the fact that the single black anti-ship die gives you some after-effect against ships. The key being that in the absence of BCC, that single black non-bomber die is just as effective if not more consistent as the single red die from X-wings, and more consistent, too. Once you go a more offensive route, you start seeing multiple elements get put together: an X-wing for escort, Jan or a HWK for Intel, Y-wings or B-Wings for bombing, and so forth. Those squadron make-ups look very very different from a defensive-first A-wing strategy.

The key here being that whatever strategy you decide to commit to, you want to commit to it as ruthlessly and as efficiently as possible.

Personally, I think when you are putting squads into a Sato fleet, you should be looking at squads that can be very mobile and more importantly...have grit! Tycho is an obvious choice, and IMO Shara is too as you will have your squads spread out trying to get into Sato range for ship shots. Any single squad that wants to tie up Shara is in for a bad day. I think you need to start looking at Lancers and Scurrgs due to their grit ability. Unless your opponent brings more than one squad to tie one of yours up, it will be able to move and stay in Sato range for the ship shots.

55 minutes ago, itzSteve said:

Personally, I think when you are putting squads into a Sato fleet, you should be looking at squads that can be very mobile and more importantly...have grit! Tycho is an obvious choice, and IMO Shara is too as you will have your squads spread out trying to get into Sato range for ship shots. Any single squad that wants to tie up Shara is in for a bad day. I think you need to start looking at Lancers and Scurrgs due to their grit ability. Unless your opponent brings more than one squad to tie one of yours up, it will be able to move and stay in Sato range for the ship shots.

This is why Han is my favorite Sato squadron to include. Hera works really well too, since she pairs well with a swarm of a-wings which are also effective Sato fodder... I mean.... squadron wing. I personally pass on Scurggs and Lancers due to their other shortcomings, but a little bit of grit with Sato can go a long way.

Grit is definitely good with Sato, but I think as long as you have enough squadrons, no grit or even just 1 ship can work. When I started playing around with him, I was very worried about getting tied down and not being able to "paint" ships. If you can be a bit conservative with Tycho and keep him alive, he can do that function brilliantly. Also, likely a number of ships are going to naturally be near the squadron engagement, which tends to happen in front of ships facing each other and moving towards each other. I think an additional source of grit would help (Han is fantastic but super expensive, or perhaps a Lancer), but to be honest, I think even just throwing in a token Z95 that hangs back on an obstacle and moves as a "safety" Sato painter works fine, as long as you are bringing enough squads to hold your own in that game (and with Sato you should)!

Tonnes of hwks with Toryn and Hera...