https://archiveofossus.wordpress.com/2018/01/06/the-trials-of-konstantine/
So in 306 AD Constantine the Great took charge of the Roman Ar..... Nevermind, thats not relevant.
As some of you may know I have been testing out a particular Admiral for quite some time, an Admiral who many say is not tournament worthy, or indeed worthy. Though I myself am intrigued as he is an Admiral who plays differently to the other, as he brings a promising ability to disrupt the best laid plans of mice and your opponent.
Of course I am referring to Admiral Konstantine, and his on demand warp hole. Wave six brought us a new cheap medium ship which many felt was the key to unlocking Konstantine's potential, and in some ways it has. Here is a run through of some myths and ideas about the man himself:
Constantine named the city of Constantinople after his second cousin. Oh right, not relevant again, its also false, he named it after himself obviously.
Konstantine forces your opponent to overuse navigation commands. This is generally true, however, that unfortunately is not particularly helpful as navigation is an extremelly powerful command. Preventing the use of command fire rarely makes that much difference, although the benefit can be increased with the use of targeting scramblers. Preventing the use of squadron is quite helpful, but comes up against a flaw with Konstantine, it is very difficult to have a substantial squad force of your own.
Konstantine is best combined with slicers and tractors. This is also generally true, a single speed change on its own does very little as it can in most cases be immediately be undone. Where this power becomes more useful is when combined slicers to remove nav commands, and tractor beams to remove nav tokens or change speed (though you dont necessarily want to slow the enemy down). A single slicer tractor gozanti driving around a fustrated speed 1 Demolisher all game is an amusing sight.
Konstatine requires three medium ships to add redundancy. This isnt really true. Like many people I started with this assumption as it seemed dangerous to rely on only two ships and be at risk of losing one early. The thing with this is that you are then forced into having three medium or large ships, seems obvious, but thats really restricting your list building. What I have found is that Konstantine's power is about controlling the enemies approach above everything else. You can make the enemy approach slower than they would like, or faster than they would like, or half and half as they ram fest themselves and you get to deal with the enemy in two pieces. Think about fleet ambush, in theory its great as it splits your opponent into two groups which is great, except that your opponent got to choose which ships are in which group and they chose to play this mission. Konstantine IS a fleet ambush mission everytime, without the caveats.
Konstantine is great for turtling objectives, Station Assault, Contested Outpost and Salvage Run. Again, this is not exactly true. Grav Shift Reroute and Grav Wells are absolutely unbelievable for turtling objectives. Konstantine is seen as ubiquitous with the Interdictor ship, however its difficult to justify his worth here. Konstantine allows you to stiffarm your opponent and keep them at long range by reducing the speed of their approach. However, this is only mildly effective (note: I used to play this pre Demo nerf) and one thing imperials are not noted for is effective long range firepower, at least not without Vader or Rhymer. So instead ideally want we want is a way to bring the imperials excellent black dice into action.
Konstantine is great for max bombers. Again, not strictly true. There is an idea that because your opponent is overdoing navigation commands that it gives you an opportunity to control the squadron game. This is a little debatable as in these circumstances your opponents will just squadron as your bombers will catch them whether they navigate or not. By going max bombers you are limiting your ship power which devalues the power of Konstantine. This does raise a good point that Konstantine needs a decent trap of ships to benefit from his antics.
Konstantine can kill enemy ships by speeding them of the board. Yup absolutely true. This is his party trick which works best against MC30s. At speed 4 MC30's struggle to navigate, especially if you took suprised them by taking away their nav command, nav token and increased their speed. That said, it is a party trick and should be not be relied upon outside the parlour room as most MC30s pack skilled first officers and are only in occasional fleets anyway.
So where does this leave us?
With a list that utilises the pagan faith which Constantine forsaked on his deathbed for chri... not relevant, apologies.
With a list that doesnt rely on squadrons for anti squadron power
With a list that brings the true undervalued close range power of the imperials to bear
With a list that combines slicers and tractors for maximum effect
With a list that pulls the enemy into an unholy trap, as it silently waits
With a list that can kill your cheap activations on the approach taking away your hope
With a list for which no other imperial commander would be better
Konstantine Raiders with slicers
Author: Ginkapo
Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 400/400
Commander: Admiral Konstantine
Assault Objective: Station Assault
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Solar Corona
[ flagship ] Victory II-Class Star Destroyer (85 points) "Indiana"
- Admiral Konstantine ( 23 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Disposable Capacitors ( 3 points)
- Quad Battery Turrets ( 5 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 127 total ship cost
Quasar Fire I-class Cruiser-Carrier (54 points) "Junior Jones"
- Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams ( 6 points)
= 60 total ship cost
Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points) "Raider of the Last Crusade"
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- External Racks ( 3 points)
= 51 total ship cost
Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points) "Raider of the Temple of Doom"
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- External Racks ( 3 points)
= 51 total ship cost
Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points) "Raider of the Lost Arc"
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- External Racks ( 3 points)
= 51 total ship cost
Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points) "Raider of the Crystal Skull"
- Slicer Tools ( 7 points)
= 30 total ship cost
Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points) "Dr Jones"
- Slicer Tools ( 7 points)
= 30 total ship cost
Card view link
The key to this list, as with many is in outdeploying your opponent. Now how can I say this with a list that has ONLY 7 deployments? Well because of the power of the deployment curve. Most MSU lists are bringing less than 7 deployments so you can place the last medium ship in the perfect place to set your Konstantine trap. And lists with higher than 7 deployments have a tendency to be squadron balls which all deploy within distance 1-2 of each other anyway so can be entirely predicted from the first ship placement. (Git gud squadron players)
Even on paper I can tell that many of you wont believe me that this list is decent, and I can understand the trepidation. All I can suggest is that you try it out, instead of accelerating the raiders to the enemy, accelerate the enemy into your raiders whilst you slow roll an obscene amount of dice from overlapping arcs forward.
And a final point:
Konstantine is a great place to start with all imperial listbuildling. Absolutely true. If you handicap yourself by taking Konstantine, at least two medium ships, investment in tractor beams and slicer tools, then once you have playtested you will have a great idea which admiral offers the most to the list and how to really get bang for your buck by switching those navigation restricting upgrades. My max bomber list started of with Konstantine at the helm, but now has Motti leading and its a really really strong list.
Fleet Stories (The lists tried along the way)
This part isnt essential reading to understand Konstantine, so dont feel indebted to read it.
First up, the Dual Vics (Pre Campaign):
Au Revoir
Author: Ginkapo
Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 394/400
Commander: Admiral Konstantine
Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Minefields
[ flagship ] Interdictor-class Suppression Refit (90 points)
- Admiral Konstantine ( 23 points)
- Interdictor ( 3 points)
- Fighter Coordination Team ( 3 points)
- Grav Shift Reroute ( 2 points)
- Targeting Scrambler ( 5 points)
= 126 total ship cost
Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (73 points)
- Veteran Gunners ( 5 points)
- Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams ( 6 points)
= 84 total ship cost
Victory I-Class Star Destroyer (73 points)
- Veteran Gunners ( 5 points)
- Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams ( 6 points)
= 84 total ship cost
Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Slicer Tools ( 7 points)
= 30 total ship cost
2 TIE Advanced Squadrons ( 24 points)
2 TIE Fighter Squadrons ( 16 points)
2 YV-666s ( 30 points)
Card view link
This list was based on the idea that Konstantine requires a redundant number of medium ships, in this case three. Both Vics are lightly kitted out and expendable, with vet gunners to make them threatening, just. The Interdictor has targetting scamblers and runs in the middle to keep everyone alive. And finally a Slicer Gozanti to mess with everyones dials.
I took it to a Stevenage Store Champs, which is a really good test for any fleet. There are a few really good players there and often a wide variety of fleets on show to give something a real test. I came second by a single point after three games!
It was absolutely fantastic against joust fleets as it dragged them exceedingly quickly into the Vic guns and blasted them to bits, (8 red, 6 blue, 6 black across 4 attacks and 3 rams), and more than mitigated the Vics limited top speed bringing the enemy to them. Unfortunately, rebel small ships just flirt with the edges and there is nothing that can be done about it.
YV666's with Fighter Coordination teams are amazing and so is this squad wing. The tie fighters engage first, followed by the tie advanced ones the tie fighters have been hit (preferably only once as they cant take much more), followed by the YV666s to absolutely wreck the face of the earth, or their squad wing, whichever is easier.
Second, Interdictor of objective pain
ISD Konstantine
Author: Ginkapo
Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 397/400
Commander: Admiral Konstantine
Assault Objective: Station Assault
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Salvage Run
Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Slicer Tools ( 7 points)
= 30 total ship cost
Interdictor-class Suppression Refit (90 points)
- Minister Tua ( 2 points)
- Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams ( 6 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
- Grav Shift Reroute ( 2 points)
- G7-X Grav Well Projector ( 2 points)
= 107 total ship cost
[ flagship ] Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)
- Admiral Konstantine ( 23 points)
- Relentless ( 3 points)
- Skilled First Officer ( 1 points)
- Phylon Q7 Tractor Beams ( 6 points)
= 143 total ship cost
Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Suppressor ( 4 points)
- Slicer Tools ( 7 points)
= 34 total ship cost
1 "Mauler" Mithel ( 15 points)
1 Colonel Jendon ( 20 points)
1 Zertik Strom ( 15 points)
1 Maarek Steele ( 21 points)
1 Saber Squadron ( 12 points)
Card view link
The aim here was clearly to maximise the slicers and tractor beams whilst stubbornly sitting on 80pts of objectives from the start. Its a glorious list that is exceedingly difficult to break down. As said the objectives are truly extremelly favourable and hard to defeat. Konstantine and the shenanighans make it really difficult for the enemy to get close, and even against Ackbar you can either pull a ship of the rear of the conga or slow down the front.
Mauler, Saber and Jendon can kill enemy intel outright which lets Maarek, Saber and Zertik get the upper hand on any enemy squadrons to keep the skys clear of those gnats. The ISD can take out any ship that gets too close.
As a list it was lovely, but had one major flaw. It consistently scored 6-5 every single time with maybe the occassional 7-4 if I got lucky. Its good that it was almost impossible to beat, but it also couldnt capitalise on that very easily to score highly which ultimately is why I packed it in. Gave me real Konstantine hope though.
Third the bombers
babomb
Author: Ginkapo
Faction: Galactic Empire
Points: 392/400
Commander: Admiral Motti
Assault Objective: Precision Strike
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Navigational Hazards
[ flagship ] Imperial Star Destroyer Kuat Refit (112 points)
- Admiral Motti ( 24 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
= 148 total ship cost
Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
- Bomber Command Center ( 8 points)
= 35 total ship cost
Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
= 27 total ship cost
Quasar Fire I-class Cruiser-Carrier (54 points)
- Pursuant ( 2 points)
- Admiral Chiraneau ( 10 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
- Expanded Hangar Bay ( 5 points)
= 75 total ship cost
8 TIE Bomber Squadrons ( 72 points)
1 Dengar ( 20 points)
1 "Mauler" Mithel ( 15 points)
Card view link
Very simple concept, screw fighting a squadron war, simply bomb the carriers. And it worked marvellously and still works marvellously. However, the keen eyed amonst you will notice that Motti sits upon the ISD and their are no slicer tools or tractor beams. Gunnery teams and Chiraneau are so much more valuable to the list and Motti gives the ships what they really need.
The Bombers are unstoppable, kill Dengar and Chiraneau will destroy you anyway. Kill Mauler and I will simply laugh that you thought he was a threat, although ignore him at your peril as he will nip at your heels do. Think you can rush the carrier, and you will find an ISD in your face.
Your choice, what dies first from your list?
Edited by GinkapoI need a proofreader, there was a space character missing and an "s" in the wrong place!
