How to win:

• Go squadronless
• Include at least 2 MC30s with H9
• Outactivate by 2 ships
• Learn how to do the last/first thing
• Outbid and pick 1st player
• Select his contested outpost
• Proceed to rip him apart every single game

See round 2 for a step by step view of outmanuevering an isd

http://www.steelstrategy.com/2018/01/bel-air-games-battle-report.html?m=1

7 minutes ago, stonestokes said:

Darth Vader: If he has another way to reroll dice, such as with a CF token, he can reroll them with Vader and then reroll one of those again with the CF token. I don't want to mislead you there.

I really can't remember if he shot twice form one arc and used Vader both times. Next time I'll watch for it.

7 minutes ago, stonestokes said:

Intel Officer: That is often misunderstood, so it isn't surprising that you missed that one.

Yep. Thanks for the advise.

3 minutes ago, Gordon Freemann said:

I really can't remember if he shot twice form one arc and used Vader both times. Next time I'll watch for it.

He is allowed to use Vader for each shot. I just wanted to make sure he wasn't trying to use him more than once on the same shot.

are you free to vassal now Gord?

Meet up at 11:00?

ok cool

5 hours ago, Gordon Freemann said:

Because his fighters have more movement he can attack first due to have a WC. He moves up to 5 squads (one banked token). Each of those can attack with 4 dice. 1 reroll due to swarm equals 2-3 damage each squad for a sum of 10-15. (not counting Valen Rudor with 3 black dice!)

Then I retaliate with my squads and do around 2 damage on the average killing 3 squads and hurting Valen, but in return suffer another 5 damage on average thanks to counter and swarm.

I have traded 15-20 damage vs 10-12.

Keep in mind that you can pre-measure. If he's coming to you, stay beyond Range 5, so he can't shoot this activation. This way, if you have a squad command, you can grab him in the side afterwards and blast the escort fighters. After that, he can either commit to chewing up your engaged fighters and opening himself up again or moving away with everyone still outside range 1, potentially leaving behind parts of his fighter group.

Key is, lead him by the nose and use range to your advantage. Just like in X Wing, in most scenarios it is possible to circumvent bad luck by flat out denying dice rolls. And if everything else fails, try more A-Wings, so you get better counter yourself. Also, try training setups where your ships die the most and how to make use of that with the rest of your fleet. That way, if you die, make sure it's bait.

It can also be valuable to borrow an ISD/Victory (if you can) and a list idea, and just practice maneuvering. Spamming navigation commands all game as a rebel player is a great way to start (especially if you go low or no squadrons). The amount of dice and results you are seeing from the Victory in particular with disposable capacitors, with Vader rerolls, is about the ceiling for long range threat for Imperials. Most of the time, having a CR90 at long range of an Imperial ship should be able to survive (barring an occasional lucky roll).

There are some great ideas for lists. I think the Ackbar Assault Frigates with ECMs and more activations may be the most straightforward starter. He wants to run in straight, you want to broadside.

MC30s are tricky to get used to but can be a super good choice, with more activations. You ideally want to go last, then first. But, you can practice having him shoot you at long range (if at all), run in, then if you are lucky get two arcs in black die range and do tons of burst damage and get out. If he stops just outside black, you can scoot by his front arc. But they take more practice to really get down.

If all else fails, see if your opponent is willing to play some games with just 1 upgrade. Things will be less deadly and it will be a bit more foregiving.

Ok, after reading many of the post again I'm sure I need to read more blogs and watch more battle reports.

For beginners I have cobbeld up a fleet with the input from the threads and a small demonstration by PodRacer and Ginkapo on how maneuvering can help me and how it's done.

This is the setup

I'm unsure about the ETs and the composition of the Squad. It's not for competitive play, just a list to judge how I'm doing on maneuvering and using long range to make life miserable for an opponent.

So what needs to be changed? 389 pts. will hopefully give me 2nd player.

Objectives I'm very unsure about too.

Why second? Be first player and wound one of his two ships by using last/first with foresight at the start of round 2 or 3 and than the trc90's can kill it

6 minutes ago, Bantha said:

Why second? Be first player and wound one of his two ships by using last/first with foresight at the start of round 2 or 3 and than the trc90's can kill it

Right, somebody mentioned it here. But in the end I'm not sure if my "nemesis" won't take more ships next time. I'd guess he might go for 3 ships. 1 ISD and 3 Light Cruisers.

But even that way I would be first/last.

What about Engine techs? To expensive for what I get? For the 24 Points I can get another Gr-75

1 minute ago, Gordon Freemann said:

But even that way I would be first/last.

Exactly! Welcome to the rebel advantage.

I'd avoid advanced gunnery unless you're bringing the biggest gun- that's best with some flavor of MC-80 for rebels. Suggest instead Most Wanted (make your objective ship Bright Hope, and I'd lose the EHB and just use a token to activate your third squad on the one or two turns where that'll be crucial). I agree with Bantha that you want first player with this list, especially against an opponent with so many fewer ships than you.

Ackbar's great, but carefully consider whether you want to use him each time you activate a corvette- you can often hurt an opponent as much or more by double arcing, which forces him to spend defense tokens against two different attacks.

I'd recommend finding the points to put Jaina's Light on one of your corvettes, "cannot be obstructed" is very powerful on a ship with so few dice.

As to Engine Techs, you use these to ram. Don't be afraid to lose a corvette if the extra two damage you get from flying into the VSD and then flying into it AGAIN by activating ET lets you kill it.

For context, I'm a fairly new rebel player, I've flown in two tournaments and won two games out of seven in that context, but one of those was a tablewipe against a sloane fleet very similar to the one that's giving you trouble- guy had a a maxed out Avenger and a VSD with disp caps. My Ackbar corvettes had them for breakfast, though I did finish each off with a really hard hit from my MC-80. You should be able to do the same with Foresight.

ok, if you are worried about more ships you could change one corvette for two gr75's. Et on the corvette makes it very very fast and your opponent will never know where you will end plus its really easy to dodge any frontarcs with Et-Corvettes. Its expensive but can pay off.

I do like the Intel-Offizier for some reason;-). Sometimes TRC is enough... depends on you in my opinion.

If he takes 1 Isd (120pkt) and 3 Arq's (162 pkt) and vader he has almost spend all his points for ships without upgrades and no squads.

55 minutes ago, Bantha said:

ok, if you are worried about more ships you could change one corvette for two gr75's. Et on the corvette makes it very very fast and your opponent will never know where you will end plus its really easy to dodge any frontarcs with Et-Corvettes. Its expensive but can pay off.

I do like the Intel-Offizier for some reason;-). Sometimes TRC is enough... depends on you in my opinion.

If he takes 1 Isd (120pkt) and 3 Arq's (162 pkt) and vader he has almost spend all his points for ships without upgrades and no squads.

Even if his opponent does that, Gordon has 5 ships and so will have last-first if he is first player.

On a slightly different note, I think Gordon might be experiencing something that happens when people dive in the deep end in this game without playing the introductory scenario with only the core set. A Nebulon and a CR90 against a Victory Star Destroyer is a one dimensional situation, but it shows you something. You usually play that scenario about two times. The first time, the Rebels get smashed when their Nebulon dies quickly in the front arc of the VSD, and then they run out of time trying to kill the VSD with the CR90 and some squads. The second game, the Rebel player sees that they use the CR90 to flank and attack from two directions while using their more generalist and robust X-wings to get work done. It's a lesson that colors how you think about the game from that point forward, I think.

After that, people usually riff on how to get and use activation advantage and positioning to win games.

1 hour ago, RobertK said:

Even if his opponent does that, Gordon has 5 ships and so will have last-first if he is first player.

On a slightly different note, I think Gordon might be experiencing something that happens when people dive in the deep end in this game without playing the introductory scenario with only the core set. A Nebulon and a CR90 against a Victory Star Destroyer is a one dimensional situation, but it shows you something. You usually play that scenario about two times. The first time, the Rebels get smashed when their Nebulon dies quickly in the front arc of the VSD, and then they run out of time trying to kill the VSD with the CR90 and some squads. The second game, the Rebel player sees that they use the CR90 to flank and attack from two directions while using their more generalist and robust X-wings to get work done. It's a lesson that colors how you think about the game from that point forward, I think.

After that, people usually riff on how to get and use activation advantage and positioning to win games.

Not inertly correct. I actually played the scenario from the core setup.

I did go very fast and avoided the VSD and never did any real damage besides depleting his shield. Objective was "Precision Strike". so I made some damage with my fighters and gained victory.

I didn't have any success with ships, instead my ideas started to rely heavy on fighters.

After that we ramped up pretty fast to the point were we are now. my 2nd game was against an ISD and 3 light cruisers. The ISD being heavily modified as you can see in the present list. I couldn't keep up, not having enough time to play at lot.

2 hours ago, Gordon Freemann said:

Ok, after reading many of the post again I'm sure I need to read more blogs and watch more battle reports.

For beginners I have cobbeld up a fleet with the input from the threads and a small demonstration by PodRacer and Ginkapo on how maneuvering can help me and how it's done.

This is the setup

I'm unsure about the ETs and the composition of the Squad. It's not for competitive play, just a list to judge how I'm doing on maneuvering and using long range to make life miserable for an opponent.

So what needs to be changed? 389 pts. will hopefully give me 2nd player.

Objectives I'm very unsure about too.

At that level of squadron investment, my favorite setup is Tycho Celchu, Shara Bey, and 2x a-wings.

Tycho and Shara are murder on tie squads of any description. Scatter plus counter is just so nasty against 3 hull squads.

11 hours ago, Gordon Freemann said:

He just send me his updated list.

http://armadawarlords.hivelabs.solutions/view_list.php?token=155045&key=1bdc4cfc953bd7c989861858877936c3

Anybody willing to play that against me?

I have read a lot of good advice hear, but I'm very sure that making them work is harder than it sounds while reading.

yep. as a matter of fact we can play it once then swap lists for the second game. that way you get to see it from both sides.

Just now, Whiplash205 said:

yep. as a matter of fact we can play it once then swap lists for the second game. that way you get to see it from both sides.

What's your timezone? I've seen you playing against PodRacer, but I'm not sure if we are in the same timezone.

I'm out of commission for today but would be available on Friday or Saturday.

17 hours ago, Gordon Freemann said:

I can cope with loosing. What I can't cope right now, that I get blasted from the board as soon I get into fighting range and I don't know what to do better. If I had a clue what went wrong I could learn, but all I do is loose and don't get better. Maybe that explains best why I'm frustrated. I'm changing tactics and fleets and loose while all he does is take the same build make it slightly better each time and gun me down.

I am in no position to give you detailed advice, as I am so bad at this game I lose regularly to me 10year old son, so no worries of more headaches from me! That said, I’ll just reiterate a few things and add one thing that helped me wrap my head around rebels and how they play.

1) IMO, and it seems to be generally acknowledged, Rebels are more difficult to learn. Not a big deal I guess, but it can be very frustrating for a new player.

2) Compounding the problem of number 1 is that you have chosen some difficult to play Rebel ships. Lots of upgrades, fragile, requires great positioning. Etc.. I usually hate to tell people it’s a list problem, but man your posted lists would be hard for even a more experienced player to pull off well.

3) I did exactly this when I started playing. I was trying to run a bunch of Nebulons and squadrons against angry triangles and it just WAS NOT working for me. Get some more durable and easier to use ships for now, and go with the tricky Peltas and Nebs later once you’ve got the maneuvering and positioning down.

4) SWITCH SIDES. Play your friends list and have him play yours. I would do this and all of a sudden stuff started clicking. I really can’t recommend this enough for your situation. Not only does it give you a break from what’s been frustrating you, you also get to see your list being used against you and it’ll help i promise.

I hope you get over this hump. It’s a cool and fun, if sometimes complicated, game.

5 hours ago, Gordon Freemann said:

What's your timezone? I've seen you playing against PodRacer, but I'm not sure if we are in the same timezone.

I'm out of commission for today but would be available on Friday or Saturday.

eastern. usually home on weekends and good all day then. during the week it depends on how I'm running and how early I can get parked.

Let’s try something simple first, without changing your list (other than to swap Sato for Dodonna or whoever).

Deploy your Pelta as the first ship and stick it in one corner. Put your fighters and Yvaris nearby. Finally, put Salvation in the other corner, pointed at his ships. (Assuming he deployed close to the middle. If he went to the side close to your initial deployments, you may need to go closer to the middle.)

Now no matter which way he turns, he’ll have 3 red dice coming at his flank. (If he splits his forces, even better — use Salvation to pull its attacker too far out of position to get back in the fight after it’s destroyed.) His front arcs are bad, but this setup should keep at least one part of your forces out of them.

During the match, don’t worry about beating him. Instead, make it your goal to 1) stay out of his front arcs and 2) try to lead his ships around and see if you can predict where they will be.

That’s it. Just focus on seeing how he responds to that situation and if attacking from two different angles does any better for you. If you really want to challenge yourself, try to place obstacles so they block his ships from your Pelta and Yvaris while leaving Salvation clear shots on the other end of the board.

Next, goof around with squadrons. Try to endure his alpha strike and then use your ships (with concentrate fire, maybe) to attack his TIEs. See if you can lure him into committing his squadrons against only some of yours. Just mess around a bit.

9 hours ago, Onidsen said:

At that level of squadron investment, my favorite setup is Tycho Celchu, Shara Bey, and 2x a-wings.

Tycho and Shara are murder on tie squads of any description. Scatter plus counter is just so nasty against 3 hull squads.

I have to agree here.

Unfortunately I didn't see an MC80H1 in your list of ships available. If you're set on rebels, and your regular opponent is set on that type of list, I'd go back to the KISS method (Keep It Simple, Stupid) and run the conga line with Ackbar. Keep the upgrades to a minimum so you don't get confused, but keep the MC80 rolling like a tank. The conga line theory is place the ships in the middle of your deployment zone facing one of the short board edges, trailing each other, with Home One in the middle of the line. He is forced to come at you with his two ships facing your most powerful arc (remember to tool it up with Ackbar!) while you plod along at speed 2. Just slowly turn the line and keep him in your side arc as the game progresses. The 3 YT-2400s are there to tie up his squadrons while only giving him 48 points in return, and they're rogues so you don't need to worry about squadron commands.

The electronic countermeasures on all ships guarantees you can use your defense token, even with an accuracy on it, and the XI7 turbolasers focus all of your damage into one area. When he attacks your MC80, dump the damage on the far side of your ship.

I'd argue it's probably one of the easiest counters to the type of list your opponent offers up. Just pay attention, and make sure he doesn't get in front of your line.

http://armadawarlords.hivelabs.solutions/view_list.php?token=155246

KISS
Author: EMSGoof

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 396/400

Commander: Admiral Ackbar

Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Fire Lanes
Navigation Objective: Superior Positions

[ flagship ] MC80 Assault Cruiser (114 points)
- Admiral Ackbar ( 38 points)
- Home One ( 7 points)
- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
- Advanced Projectors ( 6 points)
- X17 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
= 178 total ship cost

Assault Frigate Mark II B (72 points)
- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
- X17 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
= 85 total ship cost

Assault Frigate Mark II B (72 points)
- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
- X17 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
= 85 total ship cost

3 YT-2400s ( 48 points)