I'm a relatively new Rebel Admiral who just acquired a Liberty-class cruiser for my fleet. I really wanted one since I started playing because it's always been my favorite ship from the films but I gave in to prevailing wisdom and saved it for last. I've had it for a couple weeks and I've played ~5 games with it. I ran it once with a pair of MC30Ts and it did good work there because my opponent was so focused on all those black dice coming at him that I got the Liberty into his flank with gunnery teams and it was beautiful. The other games I've been trying to run a double MC80 list alongside my MC80HO and that has been... less effective. I was practicing this combo to use it in our Corellian Conflict that started last night (I did win my game at least!).

So what I've learned so far is that the Liberty laughs at huge burst damage with no accuracies (hi, Demolisher), but doesn't much care to be stuck in front of ISDs and hates being pecked at by enemy squadrons, even TIE Fighters pose a pretty serious threat in numbers. Mine seems to often end up stuck on something even with Madine.

I've done reasonably well against VSDs and other light ships, but everyone around here runs ISD IIs and those are giving me a lot of trouble. So far my plan has been to just avoid them and go for squishy targets, but it hasn't worked out too well because I'm usually out deployed and my opponents sprint their ISDs in at Speed 3 right into my face knowing the Liberty is a big points piñata. I have managed to do some crazy moves at Speed 3 with Madine to get around them but then I usually only get one shot at the ISD, take a bunch of damage and am forced to withdraw and sometimes chased down by fighters on the way out. My Liberty is a big investment so I'd like it to get more than one shot off.

How do I fly this thing?

I'm loving the ship otherwise and would be open to suggestions for fun Liberty builds and fleets to try out.

I'd also appreciate any deployment advice for the MC80L + MC80HO combo I have in CC. I've found they have serious problems supporting one another even if I put them down side by side. Either the pickle is too far away to help much or it's in the way when I'm trying to jump sideways to get away from the ISDs.

I recommend doing a forum search for Vergilius and Liberty. He's written 2-3 very useful and detailed posts for how he uses MC80BC/SC. I've found his thoughts to be very helpful.

Edit: Hopefully it wasn't too confusing because he's already posted here, but I have corrected Vergilius' user name.

@GiledPallaeon has also flown a double Liberty list that may be worth reading about.

He has some thoughts here, which is actually a thread about dual ISD lists, but there is a section in his first post that deals with the dual Liberties and how he flies them.

Navigate, Navigate, Navigate.

Take Raymus, Gunnery Teams, Engine Techs and Leading shots. I personally like Endeavor and Spinals as well.

The BC is a consummate bully. Use it to take out weaker smaller things that you run down. Avoid large ships unless you can get in their weak arcs.

@Vergilius flies a mean Madine Liberty list.

He generally manages to fly it so that it is outflanking while only presenting the front shield to the enemy.

I noticed that he builds his Lib as an accuracy-generating ship and uses it to snipe small ships in one shot.

Nav teams

9 minutes ago, Maturin said:

@GiledPallaeon has also flown a double Liberty list that may be worth reading about.

That post was a big inspiration for me to attempt double MC80s and is full of great advice. I just read the Liberty section again and I think I need to fly it more like a giant CR90 (with Madine, of course) than trying to fly it like the more conventional assault cruiser.

I’ve recently played several games with Madine and the Liberty (MC80B, TRC90x2, and a pair of flotillas). I tend to have a similar problem of getting only one or two rounds of fire before moving on. For the huge point investment, it just isn’t worth it. I’d love to hear some tips on that too, but - as a side note - I’ve put together a list drop drops the MC80B and a flotilla for a pair of MC30s. Having two solid threats instead of the one points piñata seems to be a better move.

Perhaps I just need a bit more practice.

My thoughts are that MC80 libs are sledgehammers. Monsterous single hit, but can leave you wide open. It is most certainly NOT an ISD. May look like it but it is not. Taking 2 is tricky putting them so your opponent has to choose between one or the other, but yet not out of range of the not it liberty. They shred smaller ships, and if played Right can take on an ISD. it's probably the only ship that can meet an ISD face to face and not insta melt. Not that you should that's kinda like trading queens could be real hazserdous. I do love the liberty, and I'm of the firm opinion it should be used extremely aggressively even against far stronger ships to get the best bang for the buck. I guess may not be worth much, but that's my general thoughts

At this point I feel like most of what I can say productively, I’ve already said in countless threads around the forum. Some of those are battle reports; some are general threads answering questions to others.

some of getting it to work is figuring out the basics of all lists. You need a squadron answer that you can play very well, and you need enough activations to be meaningful.

23 minutes ago, DavidnTanya said:

as a side note - I’ve put together a list drop drops the MC80B and a flotilla for a pair of MC30s. Having two solid threats instead of the one points piñata seems to be a better move.

Why not both?

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 398/400

Commander: General Madine

Assault Objective: Most Wanted
Defense Objective: Hyperspace Assault
Navigation Objective: Solar Corona

[ flagship ] MC80 Battle Cruiser (103 points)
- General Madine ( 30 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Engine Techs ( 8 points)
- Spinal Armament ( 9 points)
- X17 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 167 total ship cost

MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- H9 Turbolasers ( 8 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
= 80 total ship cost

MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63 points)
- Admonition ( 8 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
= 80 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 20 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
= 18 total ship cost

1 Tycho Celchu ( 16 points)
1 Shara Bey ( 17 points)

I'm thinking about taking this to a very small store tournament this weekend. Last time I ran it under Rieekan and I think he might be better. Super vulnerable to squadrons but I did beat a Sloane Defenders list with it by putting the pedal down and annihilating his carriers on turn 4. It was a ton of fun to play.

Step 1) Take Raddus

Step 2) Pimp that Liberty

Step 3) ????

Step 4) Profit

47 minutes ago, Truthiness said:

Step 1) Take Raddus

Step 2) Pimp that Liberty

Step 3) Add a speed 5 ETCR90

Step 4) Profit

FTFY

So yeah, go read the dual ISD post, and you might need the whole thing for the context of my specific comments on double Libs. TL:DR (it is like 7200+ words, fair warning) they need to be in a list that can support their maneuver (almost always means at least two, preferably three of the following: Engine Techs, Nav Team, Leia, Madine, activation advantage, first player), and they need to be built in a such a way as to support their fleet role. If it's your only truly deadly killer, pimp it out with everything, and guard it jealously until you're in position to blow away both of those pesky Raider s before they ever roll their own dice. If it isn't, you should probably keep it cheap and use it as an anvil that another killer (probably a 30, maybe a 75 once that arrives, using that monstrous forward shield. My big piece of maneuver advice is this: not showing your side to the enemy on a Lib is somewhere between half and a third of the angle to the target required for a double arc from your ship, so remember to point it not only at the enemy, but that LOS dot on the danger arc.

I also suggest summoning @Aresius whose thorough trouncing of me in one of my first Vassal games is why my dual Liberty list exists at all, and that if you go searching the forums for a user's posts, skip the POS search tool and use a tailored Google search. You might actually find something that way.

Feel free to reply to this or continue pinging me if something I said isn't all that clear.

My take on the Liberty;

Fun ship to fly with clear strengths and weaknesses.

• Strengths; great front arc both offensively and defensively, good speed, good defense tokens, 1st joint tic adds maneuvering versatility, good upgrade bar and titles, reasonable price.
• Weaknesses; very poor non-front arcs, lack of defensive retrofit, limited Rebel commanders, poor maneuverability which aggravates your front arc dependency, Command 3 means if you find yourself in a bad position it can be hard to respond appropriately.

Therefore aim to build and fly your Liberty to utilize your strengths while mitigating your weaknesses, which mostly is about positioning. Key upgrades include;

Commanders;

• Madine; number 1 choice. Turns the Liberty into an extremely maneuverable and difficult to predict ship. Usually fly at speed 3, have 4 tics to work with with great tic placement. 5 tics with Nav token too. Allows hard turns and nice inside turns, while maintaining high speeds. Really allows the Liberty to get into a good position to maintain its front arc while protecting sides and rear. Also often can avoid enemies' preferred arcs while hitting their own weak arcs, even the rear. These 2 factors augment your offence and mitigate your defensive flaws
• Garm; I like Garm. Fully stacked tokens from turn 1 means you can spam Navs for 1-3 turns without feeling bad. Tokens immensely help the Liberty to use token/dial requiring upgrades, namely Engine techs, Nav teams, Eng teams, Liberty title and Liason officers
• Dodonna; nice budget officer, helps to fit more ships into list thus allowing your unpredictable Liberty to move later. Double turbolasers mean you can pick up XX-9s and another of your choosing (eg Xi7)
• Leia; never tried, but looks like a more versatile and less specialized Madine, when combined with Nav teams. That said, if you are Nav'ing alot, which you will be, you are usually better off with Madine
• Raddus; pending

Officers;

• Raymus; I like the Raymus+Madine+Engine tech combo. Every second turn I plot a Nav dial, and bank the Nav token for the turns in-between. Thus every turn you can use Madine and every turn use Engine techs. Abundance of tokens also mitigates command 3. Raymus also is great for Liberty title carrier builds
• Walex and Lando; Fixes defensive flaws in a pinch. I personally like Walex more in this case as without the defensive retrofit he allows you to spend your braces and redirect more freely (for example if your green brace is accuracy'ed and the other is red). You live by your defense tokens and Walex keeps them strong longer
• Major Derlin; an expensive choice, but helps improve your weak arcs from ships that can still outmaneuver it, or squadrons, saving you burning that single redirect. Can avoid squadron crits
• Liasons; A cheap and versatile option if you struggle to choose the correct dial, and have either Garm or Comms net. Fixes command 3 problem

Support;

• Engine Techs; hands down my favorite upgrade with Madine. Speed 4 Madine Liberties can end up anywhere in 3 turns. You can also double ram in a pinch, eg to kill a blocking Flotilla that already rammed you if you don't want to waste your shot on it. I prefer on Star Cruisers with a more offensive load-out as their extreme speed means you get in close (more blue dice +/- SW-7 +/- Mon Karren) and usually out-flank the enemy thus avoiding harsh retaliation
• Nav team; highly recommend either Engine techs or Nav team. Almost ablates your maneuvering weakness. I prefer on Battle Cruiser Gunnery Team Liberties as the extra tics helps aiming. Get some defensive upgrades (Endeavour, Walex/Lando, support ships)
• Medical team; cheap choice to help remedy your lack of contain, provided you did not get the Endeavor title

That should about cover your weaknesses. Choose Weapons, Ion and Turbolaser upgrades depending on its intended role. There are certainly some nice combos to be found.

Edit; forgot about your specific questions/concerns.

Enemy fighters; When travelling at high speeds you will often take 1 shot and then leave them in the dust. You can also rush their light carriers (ie Quasars or Peltas) and take them down in 1-2 turns. Derlin/Walex (Walex to reuse redirect), Endeavor and repair dials/tokens help most here.

Getting stuck; should not happen with Madine. Anything small and fast that sits in front of you should blow up. Anything big should be easy to outmaneuver, with the exception of speed 3 JJ ISDs. Go speed 3+engine techs, start on turn 1 with a wide swinging trajectory, and turn in sharply only once you have their threats out-positioned. Remember inside turns ; i.e. normally if you turn right for example you need to place the movement ruler/movement template to the right side of your ship, or you will overlap the template and it will be illegal. But with experimentation with adjusting different tics on the movement template you can place it on the left side of your ship while turning hard right with a net turn of 3 tics (67,5 degrees) plus another tic with engine techs if desired (90 degrees). Set your ruler to this configuration and see for yourself; 1st joint 2 tics right, 2nd joint 2 tics right, 3rd joint 1 tic left. The advantage is a very different end point positioning with a very tight turn, and often catches the opponent off-guard.

Combine with Liberty with other fast threats. Do the ISDs turn to try and face the Liberty and expose themselves to the 2 CR90s headed the other way?

CC HOMC80 and LMC80 combo; The major flaw with this combo is 2 expensive ships which eat into your remaining points. You will likely be out-activated. This greatly detracts from trying to outmaneuver the enemy with the Liberty as their key ships will very likely get to move last. Also incidentally Defiance, which is one of the best titles in the game is less useful here. I'd go with Garm for this for some nice tokens. Try to keep them slightly apart so the enemy cannot Gunnery team them both, while meanwhile coordinating fire on a chosen value target. Fly Hammer and Anvil stile, i.e a tank HOMC80 flies into the danger arc, with the Liberty flying more wide and turning into the side. I'd consider Engine techs on both a must as speed will keep them alive longer and Garm can fuel it (with Asoka). Engine techs also help prevent sneaky ships getting in front of the HOMC80. Nice combos include Xi7 on both, so together they can drill to hull. Alternatively the Home One title and Quad Turbolaser Cannons on a Battle Cruiser is great for swatting small ships from range. The upcoming Exodus fleet title is also intriguing. Garm Eng tokens give 4 points. Dials give 6 and a dial and token give 8. Whichever ship is under threat can spam these repairing 4 shield per turn (Garm+Asoka).

That is one of the best recent write-ups that I've seen.

6 hours ago, Divad said:

My take on the Liberty;

That was an awesome post. Thank you. It sounds like my biggest problem is just flying it too slow. Now that you mention it, my best runs have been when I was going speed three with Madine. I've been really hesitant about jumping too far ahead of my other cruiser. I've mostly been practicing with my round 1 CC fleet, so it'll be interesting to see how things go once I get some bells and whistles on it. My team won big on resources last week so I can afford to kit it out nicely. This looks pretty close to the build I was thinking but I see a few places I can improve.

I'm hoping Engine Techs will go a long way to help the MC80HO stay relevant when the rest of my fleet is much faster (Liberty, TRC90s, etc). I've got the Assault Cruiser and the Star Cruiser, so hammer and anvil is definitely the plan if I can manage to position well enough that the ISD has to come into range of the pickle to engage me.

Well, with a Liberty and MC80 pairing, I've always been a huge fan of the Home One/Quad Turbolaser combo. With Spinal and QTL on the Lib, and stacked CF commands (Engineering cap can swap out for repair as needed and transports comms tokens for the Nav team), your looking at 7 red dice at range 3 - with two of the reds guaranteed accuracies. In theory, that gives a strong turn two volley, with the same again in turn 3 to finish off.

At the moment, I'm carrying Gunnery teams to give a second bite of that cherry to targets of opportunity, though Caitken and Shollan are looking a tempting way to mitigate the fickleness of reds.

Been getting a bit of joy with this lot... one recent game was particularly brutal - Endeavor one-shotted four Gladiators in four successive (unanswered) shots thanks to last-firsting:

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 398/400

Commander: General Dodonna

Assault Objective: Advanced Gunnery
Defense Objective: Contested Outpost
Navigation Objective: Minefields

MC80 Battle Cruiser (103 points)
- Endeavor ( 4 points)
- Engineering Captain ( 6 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Nav Team ( 4 points)
- Spinal Armament ( 9 points)
- Quad Turbolaser Cannons ( 10 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 147 total ship cost

[ flagship ] MC80 Assault Cruiser (114 points)
- General Dodonna ( 20 points)
- Home One ( 7 points)
- Raymus Antilles ( 7 points)
- Engine Techs ( 8 points)
- Advanced Projectors ( 6 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
- Enhanced Armament ( 10 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 181 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Quantum Storm ( 1 points)
- Ahsoka Tano ( 2 points)
- Repair Crews ( 4 points)
= 25 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Bright Hope ( 2 points)
- Leia Organa ( 3 points)
- Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 25 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 20 total ship cost

I will pre-empt this by saying that I'm a terrible Armada player and I mostly seek advice on the subject rather than give it, however this one ship seems to cater to my play style or perhaps its just newbie friendly or something.

In any case the one thing that I have found with this ship is that you have to treat it like a small ship in terms of mindset of how you fly it. Also you always run this ship in the spirit of the Rebel "concept" which is that you don't win on the battlefield trying to out dice/ out shoot your opponnent, you win in the forum of strategic scoring on objectives which I think this ship is particularly great for as it covers a wider spectrum. Its able to be a great support for pretty much any objective, which is great as second player but equally good as first since its flexible.

To me however like Neb-B's this ship is kind of marked for death in most games, its only a matter of time before those side's get exposed and you are overwhelmed so I agree with what most have posted here in terms of focusing on making it a more manuverable ship. It really is all about your NAV's this ship rolls it, does its work and then escapes much like the Neb B.

Oh and when it comes to ISD's, avoid,evade and snipe. You don't want to tango with that one unless you have some heavy support.

I think the most dangerous thing to this ship is bomber squadrons aswell, in most games where this one ends up in the funeral parlor its not ships but squads that put it there.

So far in playing Armada, this is the one ship I feel like I always know what to do with, I know where it should be and were it shouldn't and how to leverage its advantages but I do feel the poster in terms of a feeling of a bit inept with certain ship. For me its the smaller ships that I'm a bit confused about, MC30 is a total mystery to me.

5 minutes ago, BigKahuna said:

Oh and when it comes to ISD's, avoid,evade and snipe. You don't want to tango with that one unless you have some heavy support.

It's not realy true. If i remember well, the Liberty is the only one ship in rebel fleet who can destroy an ISD with the triple tap strategic.

Btw, when i experiment with the Liberty i have some problem if my fleet have 2 ship who deal damage on the enemy ship. Liberty is very hard to protect when you have to 2 ships to move and the opponet can see where your Liberty go, and with 2 ships (and some support) you usually fly a poor squadrons setup who leave the side of your Liberty exposed to an heavy squadron fleet.

I don't have much to add that hasn't been said already, but when using engine techs you have incredible speed flexibility that you can use to your advantage. When starting at speed 1, with a dial and a token, you can effectively change speed by 3 to execute a speed 4 maneuver. To visualize it, lay your range ruler at the end of your maneuver tool, and this is the range you can threaten. Playing this aggressively can sometimes disrupt your opponent's plans.

Just remember, you have to complete the speed 3 maneuver first. I have tripped myself up thinking about where I wanted to end up at speed four, but getting stuck overlapping a ship with my first maneuver, usually with a back corner as it swings out.

I like to play mine with engine techs, gunnery teams, sw7, and h9 for hunting small ships. If I have the points, I'll also add XI7s.

Another good officer upgrade to the Liberty is the Engineering Captain. Set your commands to navigate and CF only, but use the good captain when you really need that engineering fix.

8 hours ago, Realadmiralsdoitinspace said:

Endeavor one-shotted four Gladiators in four successive (unanswered) shots thanks to last-firsting

Boogita woogita whaaaaaa...?!

I'm pretty strictly a rebel player, and I've been running double libs since they came out. In my CC Campaign I've been enjoying them with two HH's and a 90+ point rogue fighter screen (Tycho, Shara, Jan, Hera, Corran, Ketsu; they make a great combo when you want a mid-strong fighter screen and don't want to do fighter commands).

I've played a lot of fast fleets, MSU's, etc, but double Libs is my favorite. Some good advice up here, but for me I can't see any reason to every use them with anyone except Madine (though Raddus could be fun, but he negates the need for the Libs biggest asset, speed).

When you're doing those speed 4 maneuvers remember that it's better to be close range and juuusst out of their big arc (i.e. front of an ISD) than medium range IN the arc. It'll take some practice, but with Madine and constant navs you'll be surprised how well you can Tokyo Drift the rear end of your ship around to get about two millimeters outside that scary arc. @Mikael Hasselstein can tell you, he's seen me do it a lot.

Standard for me is: MC80BC's, one Karen one Endeavor, GT's, ET's, XI'7's, LShots on both. I know H9's are all the rage right now as flotilla killers, but I see it as a bit of a waste to be firing a lib at a flotilla. That's what your small support ships or fighters are for. Send your CR90's or HH's at the flotillas. Ram em to death with Garel's Honor, or just concentrate them down. But your libs should be killing their bruisers. Libs make great Kitten hunters (Arquitens), and are scary as **** to VSDs, Quasars, and even Interdictors (you can hurt them faster than they can repair).

Once you evade that front arc slow down . Don't stay at speed three. You aren't doing strafing runs, you're in a dog-fight. Once you get on your opponents tail you stay there .

Now, of course, all of this is situational dependent (or METT-TC as we say in the Army), but those are my "Michelle's Rules of Liberty Combat". Libs are one of my favorite ships, as they suit my flying style. If they suit yours, keep running them and eventually it'll all be second nature.