What's the better way(s) to use hera? My first thought is dual xwings and maybe rogue. Escort and high blue dice for anti-squad. However they are 4 points more than 4yt2400s, and stuck around 1unit while the yt2400s are flexible and self-sustaining

EDIT: sorry posted in the wrong place. Can someone help me move this to the main? Thanks

Hera is not very good, at 28 points her 2 black 2 blue anti-squadron si too weak and her ability only works once most things have activated, if she had 2 brace maybe she could be worth 28 points but with only 1 brace things like Interceptors will eat her for lunch

Like most things that size, her 8 hull lets her soak up a chunk of damage to live just long enough for her ability to grant some payback.

Her attack is (effectively) equal to a Swarming Interceptor, given that Blacks have better chance of doing damage than straight blues... I mean, she outputs the same damage as a TIE Defender, and people don't seem to be fussed with that... maybe its because of the points differential there, being that she is worth almost 2...

But the ability to grant Rogue is... somewhat difficult to fathom in a straight points matchip. Especaially since the only way to stop her from granting it is to kill her - she does it even while engaged and such.. And some people being granted rogue is disproportionately great... Wedge, for example, is almost always going for an activated target at that point, granting him extra dice... Keyan, for example, can make the move and shoot to an adjacent zone that's lost its shields... Even Regular A-Wings are able to have a long-range Shoot-and-Bomb with a Non-Bomber Black to finish off a ship that dare thought it was out of range...

It has its uses, and its nebulous for its points... I like the single brace (more than nothing) because, indeed, it protects her from smarmy b-stards like Sheet-eatin'-Grin Rudor who throws nothing but black dice for days in return to her...

Do I use her veyr often? No. No I don't. She's not as plug and play as we're led to believe by the basics of her ability - she requries planning at the list build to get the most out of her.

18 hours ago, Muelmuel said:

What's the better way(s) to use hera? My first thought is dual xwings and maybe rogue. Escort and high blue dice for anti-squad. However they are 4 points more than 4yt2400s, and stuck around 1unit while the yt2400s are flexible and self-sustaining

EDIT: sorry posted in the wrong place. Can someone help me move this to the main? Thanks

Sorry, but Hera...just don't take her.

8 hull sounds like a lot, but the single brace betrays her. She gets burned down so often without that brace ever coming into play. If you think about how hard it's to kill Tycho/Shara by comparison?

Her special ability is nice. Pair her with Corran and 2xE-wing and you got quite the sniper force. Pair her with Wedge - that's rather useful. Possibly Wedge & Dutch.

But she's 28 f-ing pts. That's just insane. She hits like a 16 pt Defender, no more, no less.

No bomber. No strategic. No relay. No nothin'.

Like Han Solo she's overcosted and it's hard to justify her over two Xwings. It's a pity, because like Han Solo she's also really cool and deserves more playtime.

Maybe if she had Strategic and two braces. Maybe.

4 hours ago, Jambo75 said:

Like Han Solo she's overcosted and it's hard to justify her over two Xwings. It's a pity, because like Han Solo she's also really cool and deserves more playtime.

You need to play with Han more if you think he's overcosted, the ability to last-first a squadron or a ship makes him a mini Demolisher, and with 8 hull, 2 braces, Han ain't dyin'quick. 2Blue 2Black AA, Blue Black AS(no bomber though, nothing's perfect) means he hits like a truck. Grit is kind of a "meh" ability but that one-in-ten game where it turns the tide you'll be glad you had it.

Han does a completely different thing than 2 X-wings that are terrible if you aren't commanding them.

7 hull, but ok. Point taken

Han is much better than Hera, but still expensive. I find myself wanting to use him, but I get Dash for 3 pts less...

I forced myself to take Hera and Han for a long time. As I decided I really really wanted to find a way to win with them.

I liked Hera with a swarm of A-wings that didnt care if they got activations or not. It was really effective. Actually, i had a lot of luck with hera, han, and a slew of A wings in a sato fleet. Its just a lot of squad dice, and Han works really well to trigger sato and chase down targets with the double move.

Hera, Wedge, Dutch and 5 A-Wings was a really good CAP for the 118 points as well. You can activate the A-Wings to engage and tie things down, then Rogue in Wedge and Dutch. This is actually the makeup I was using against Sloane in a lot of my trials that was pretty effective. Wedge, Hera and Dutch all targeting the same target is just an insane amount of damage. Also, if wedge gets 2 accs and 3 hits he can one shot a scatter ace, but you've been warned, all he rolls is crits, 6 at a time

1 hour ago, BrobaFett said:

I forced myself to take Hera and Han for a long time. As I decided I really really wanted to find a way to win with them.

I liked Hera with a swarm of A-wings that didnt care if they got activations or not. It was really effective. Actually, i had a lot of luck with hera, han, and a slew of A wings in a sato fleet. Its just a lot of squad dice, and Han works really well to trigger sato and chase down targets with the double move.

Hera, Wedge, Dutch and 5 A-Wings was a really good CAP for the 118 points as well. You can activate the A-Wings to engage and tie things down, then Rogue in Wedge and Dutch. This is actually the makeup I was using against Sloane in a lot of my trials that was pretty effective. Wedge, Hera and Dutch all targeting the same target is just an insane amount of damage. Also, if wedge gets 2 accs and 3 hits he can one shot a scatter ace, but you've been warned, all he rolls is crits, 6 at a time

Using them as support with an actual fighter screen? Nice idea, if a little expensive.

I found 118 was a good balance. I could usually make good use of the points whether I was facing a squad heavy enemy or not. If it was a 134 Sloane antisquad aces i could usually cripple it in a prettt efficient trade. Anything else I was coming out ahead. Wedge and Dutch are bombers, and Hera isnt bomber but has 2 ship dice. Black non bombers are incredibly efficient as well for the points on an A wing.

I mean, obviously its not one size fits all, but given that its 118 points designed to only recieve one round of orders (assuming I want to alpha strike) it leads to some interesting places.

On 11.9.2017 at 4:28 PM, Muelmuel said:

What's the better way(s) to use hera? My first thought is dual xwings and maybe rogue. Escort and high blue dice for anti-squad. However they are 4 points more than 4yt2400s, and stuck around 1unit while the yt2400s are flexible and self-sustaining

EDIT: sorry posted in the wrong place. Can someone help me move this to the main? Thanks

The best way to use Hera? Don't. Simple and correct answer .

Sorry, but in Armada she is just to bad (the nice wording for pure crap). To expensive, lost to many good effects (relay AND strategic) and has only one defense token.
I did not find any combination so far that make her, with two squadrons, good enough for her 28 points.

MAYBE in a fleet where you just dont have time for squadron commands. And want to move some non rogue squadrons around (Hera, Luke, Biggs or something like this). But no matter how i turn it around. The rogue is hurting in these cases. You want to move the squadrons before the squadron phase in this cases.

For 28 points you get nearly 2 VXC. With relay 2, 2x Strategic, 16 hull and 6 blue dice.

She might be usefull in Corellian Conflict. When she is Veteran.

3 hours ago, Tokra said:

The best way to use Hera? Don't. Simple and correct answer .

Sorry, but in Armada she is just to bad (the nice wording for pure crap). To expensive, lost to many good effects (relay AND strategic) and has only one defense token.
I did not find any combination so far that make her, with two squadrons, good enough for her 28 points.

MAYBE in a fleet where you just dont have time for squadron commands. And want to move some non rogue squadrons around (Hera, Luke, Biggs or something like this). But no matter how i turn it around. The rogue is hurting in these cases. You want to move the squadrons before the squadron phase in this cases.

For 28 points you get nearly 2 VXC. With relay 2, 2x Strategic, 16 hull and 6 blue dice.

She might be usefull in Corellian Conflict. When she is Veteran.

I can tell you from experience. She is not any better in CC. I couldn't get her to veteran, and she's a 14 pt repair sink when trying to upgrade your fleet. I'm not a fan.

But, that being said, I kinda want to try @BrobaFett 's build to see what it's like.

Okay, like everyone else here, I'm more in the camp of "just don't."

But I'm also strategically-minded, which means I look at every set of abilities (whether upgrade or squadron sub-text) and ask under what conditions might this work out well.

You have to figure that with Hera, you're paying the point premium to make 2 units Rogue. If we look at wave 2 where 8xYT2400s were running around, I'd estimate somewhere between 1-2 points of the cost of the YT2400 represents the Rogue ability. Granularity at low point costs makes it difficult to get a precise read on exactly what the ability is worth in points, but I think it is clearly worth 1 (Basic X-wing versus Rogue Squadron), and definitely worth less than 2. From there, you've got the general problem in costing of that ability being more valuable in providing flexibility to squadrons that couldn't get Rogue any other way.

Now, a couple of points:

1. If you're paying for Hera's ability, you don't want to lose that ability because you ran out of squads. That means volume.

2. You don't want to lose Hera's ability because you lost Hera, that not only means volume, but escort could clearly help.

3. Part of the point of the ability is flexibility: I could grant the ability to these two squads this turn, or to these other two squads another turn.

So part of Hera's problem is you want a fleet that plays up the Rogue ability, but I note that the 8xYT2400 started falling by the wayside a bit in wave-4, and especially with Steve's loss to Justin in 2016 Worlds, where a real weakness in that list was shown. I haven't seen much that made really good use of Rogue in the wake, as almost everyone is picking up some good activations from their ships. If I had to take a stab at where to work Rogue in, I'd probably look for one good ship squadron push OR two good flotilla pushes, with Rogue flexibilty at the end. One of the biggest and most beautiful benefits of Rogue is to clean-up stragglers in the squadron phases after both sides have made their main push of squads during the ship phase. I think when you put Hera plus two other cheap squads that can get where they need to be, that you gain a lot, whether those be A-wings in Broba's list above or something else.

Anyway, I'd take lists that could run the old 8xYT2400s as a starting point, and then start substituting squads that can do a similar thing from a flotilla or ship activation, such as A-wings (both the YT2400 and A-wing have a defensive squad approach). I think the central idea is rather than a straight-up blunt force approach that YT2400s provide, you're looking to get an assortment of tools that can handle some different situations in game. In that way, Hera is extremely niche.

I can jump on the "Hera is hard to make worth her points" plan, BUT I also have an idea/build that can actually leverage both her and some other crazy shenanigans together. Gimme a week or two to get a game in and I'll both A) have some blog updates and B) come back to this thread to relate some experiences. Rather than just speculate (not that anyone else is WRONG for doing so!) i've got a few ideas to give it a go. Updates soon?

I've been having a blast using Hera in my squads. Her high hull value gives her good survivability and that single brace token gives her the extra push to live through really high-dice attacks. Her dice pool is good and can wipe out non-ace squads pretty quickly, so that's always a plus. She struggles a bit more against aces, but at least she has two blue to give her a fair chance at blocking Scatter tokens.

I've been pairing her a lot with Tycho and Shara. Giving those two Rogue just feels good. But I've also had fun granting unengaged X-Wings the Rogue ability and sending them after an undefended or weakened ship .

Lately I've been considering running her with Norra Wexley and Gold squadron nearby so I can have Y-wing bombing Rogues. I think there's potential there.

She's one of the only sources of blue/black AS in the Rebel fleet, which isn't nothing. I liked her enough to try and flesh out a rogues list, but right now, since relay is so effective, the value of rogue is greatly diminished, so in this environment she is mostly an outlier. If relay ever gets nerfed or countered, her value will go up. If you do use her, take all rouges and pick two squadrons you want to make rogue. I like Gold, Dutch, and/or Wedge, as they kinda like going last. Had some fun with Ten and Hera as well. My favorite Hera squadron compliment I went with was Dutch, Gold, Hera, Han, Dash, and Ketsu. You want to keep everything well within AA range of your other ships to help boost the rogue punch in my exp.

As said above, Hera + 2 AWings or Hera + Wedge & Dutch works well. Expensive, but very annoying to deal with.

Don't take Hera.

Take 2 VCX instead.

Then spam flotillas.

Prosper.

The Hera catch-22: if the squadrons are good (Wedge, Dutch, etc.), you often want to activate them via Squadron command - particularly if they are in danger.

If the squadrons are just speed bumps (base A-Wings), adding Rogue doesn't necessarily provide much value.

Hera provides some anti-squadron value on her own, but you could also pay 1 more point for a Combat Transport and an A-Wing.

My current favorite squadron compliment is Hera, Han, Wedge, and Shara. Han's ability is pretty amazing if you can keep him on the outside of the squadron fight picking off a stray squadron here or there. Wedge can usually get in one really hard hit, sometimes two. Shara can speed ahead and lock down a group of squadrons wherever she is needed. The thing I haven't figured out how to deal with is facing Gallant Haven .

I think Hera is a potential option if you are looking for ways to take more rogue elements when looking to "Last/First" with squadrons. Rogues go in last and then activate first via a squadron command... serves as a potential counter to high activation bomber wings. I think Hera functions better in conjunction with Jan (like most things) to combo the Brace tokens. X-Wings, Jan, Hera is an idea.

The basic draw of rogues is that they do not need ship support to work. Relay makes it super easy to deliver that ship support from anywhere on the map. Thus rogues only have a role right now in fleets that don't have any carrier options (not sure what those are now that we have flotillas) or in fleets that have tough capital ships that intend to stand there and take a round of bombing, so that their rogue elements can pounce on the bombing squadrons and fight them under the flak of their own ships.

These fleet build concepts are not very good right now, which is why Hera struggles. If raid tokens make carrier builds a larger liability rogues may see a resurgence...

This is so funny to me in the context of "Hera is no good." (You need to read to the conclusions at the end of the batrep.)