Posting this list before I get to some store events in the upcoming weeks and would love feedback. The theory is (giving the MC80L another shot because I'm a masochist) having excellent maneuverability and first player initiative to keep away from BTAvenger, Demolisher, Fish Market, Vic IIs with DCaps etc., have a serious long range threat, a serious short range threat, five activations (standard 2+3 here) and enough interceptors/slicer tools to keep Sloane's fighters off my ships until round 3 or hopefully.

Off the top of my head I could switch out Intel Officer for Raymus, giving my MC80 either 2-speed + 2-yaw *or* 1-speed + 3-yaw every Nav Dial. I'm not sure I see the need for Leia outside an emergency repair dial, but for only 3 points its hard to give up. I could drop ER for WAB on the Torpedo Frigate, and upgrade Tycho to Shara, but my opponent can always just choose to tie her up and not shoot at her.

Anyway, what do you all think? Any feedback is always appreciated.

Battlecruiser Craptacula
Author: eliteone

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 385/385

Commander: General Madine

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

MC80 Battle Cruiser (103 points)
- Intel Officer ( 7 points)
- Caitken and Shollan ( 6 points)
- Engine Techs ( 8 points)
- Spinal Armament ( 9 points)
- X17 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
= 139 total ship cost

[ flagship ] MC30c Torpedo Frigate (63 points)
- General Madine ( 30 points)
- Admonition ( 8 points)
- Lando Calrissian ( 4 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Early Warning System ( 7 points)
- External Racks ( 3 points)
= 119 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Quantum Storm ( 1 points)
- Slicer Tools ( 7 points)
= 26 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Leia Organa ( 3 points)
- Comms Net ( 2 points)
= 23 total ship cost

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

1 Tycho Celchu ( 16 points)
4 A-Wing Squadrons ( 44 points)

-Gunnery Team and Leading shots might be more useful on the MC80 since it's imperative it does work for you and since it's moves pretty well it shouldn't be that hard to get into blue range.

-Maybe APT instead of external racks?

-Maybe put Leia on the other Flotilla that way you don't tie your token generation to a safety valve command.

-You can probably get away with dropping one more A-Wing if you are worried about cutting into your bid too much (it also doesn't really add to your deployments).

2 hours ago, eliteone said:

Off the top of my head I could switch out Intel Officer for Raymus, giving my MC80 either 2-speed + 2-yaw *or* 1-speed + 3-yaw every Nav Dial.

how does this work, or are you including the Engine Techs as additional speed+yaw?

I'm always nervous about having only 2 ships that can do damage, even having 1 CR90 would make me more comfy but your meta may differ.

I'd stick with 4 awings total or tycho +3 awings. Do you need that big of a initiative bid?

@Vergilius has a whole series of posts on his experience with some very similar lists. I'd recommend reading over those. Madine's Exotic Dancers (as he calls them) are rightly feared in the local meta. Off the top of my head, I'd want to get APTs on Admo. I'd also definitely look at gunnery teams/leading shots on the MC80L BC. I would also strongly consider going to a fighter component of Shara/3x Awings and get Toryn Farr (on bright hope or your liberty) in the list. Toryn Farr makes Awings considerably more lethal on both their primary attack and on any counters.

40 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

how does this work, or are you including the Engine Techs as additional speed+yaw?

I'm always nervous about having only 2 ships that can do damage, even having 1 CR90 would make me more comfy but your meta may differ.

I'd stick with 4 awings total or tycho +3 awings. Do you need that big of a initiative bid?

So with Madine you get a few options if you spend a Nav Dial + Token on the same activation.

Dial + Token gives me a total of +2 or -2 to speed, and +1 yaw. With Madine, I get an additional +1 yaw and can use the Nav token for another +1 yaw, OR +1/-1 speed

My meta sees 10-16 point bids a lot. Mostly BTAvenger but also double Motti ISDs and ISD/Demo/Raider lists.

29 minutes ago, Rikash said:

@Vergilius has a whole series of posts on his experience with some very similar lists. I'd recommend reading over those. Madine's Exotic Dancers (as he calls them) are rightly feared in the local meta. Off the top of my head, I'd want to get APTs on Admo. I'd also definitely look at gunnery teams/leading shots on the MC80L BC. I would also strongly consider going to a fighter component of Shara/3x Awings and get Toryn Farr (on bright hope or your liberty) in the list. Toryn Farr makes Awings considerably more lethal on both their primary attack and on any counters.

I can get Toryn in by making the A-Wings an even number. I love Toryn she is amazing, but I'm not sure how much she will help in this build - getting hit by a Sloane Alpha will either wipe out all my A-Wings or Dengar will make my interceptors heavy and they'll just aim for Admo or the MC80L anyway.

I'm hesitant to take GT and LS because together they cost 11 points vs. C&S for 4 points less, and I don't have to spend a die, and I get to keep what I like, so if I get a good roll I can save them for the aft/port shot, if able. I probably won't be able to keep medium range on two ships - even going first, someone's going to move out of arc and C&S + Intel allows this build to keep pumping the damage into the chase target.

I've run with GT and LS before, they do work but many times I wind up trading the MC80 for an even break. (That was w/o Madine though)

Thanks for the input!

As Rikash suggested, this is remarkably close to a list that I've finetuned for a long time. At this point, I've had 4 major battlereports that should be available on the forums through the search function.

Bid: I've done this several ways. I've run it with a big bid. I've run it with no bid. I personally like being between 394-396 because that's enough to take first in a lot of games, especially against fleets you can last/first easily. It is also possible to go second against fleets that are close to 400 with objectives. I'd personally rather come up with a plan to deal with the high bidding fleets as second player and simply take the additional points in units/upgrades rather than get into a bidding war. The cost of bidding for first in the mid 380s is you lose a ton of utility if you do get outbid by a single point. But I think in the end this has to be a personal decision based on playstyle.

Objectives: I find the Liberty in a Madine list is very prone to end up shooting into the Corona at some point. Even if you position well at the start, Madine means you'll be turning around and sometimes flipping a complete U-turn. I often go for Dangerous Territory since it is very hard for an opponent to manipulate, and having no obstacle damage in a highly manueverable Madine list is fantastic. It gets better if they cede the objective tokens to you. It looks to me like your plan with the objectives is to always take first unless you just happen to get outbid, in which case you're usually dealing with some kind of high activations MSU, in which these objectives might work. I personally prefer Contested Outpost because there are so many traps you can set off of it and you bag at least a few points over a game. Very useful for taking an 8 to a 9 or a 9 to a 10.

Ships: You need to think about the way that your list answers the basic questions posed by other lists. How do you kill big ships? HOw do you kill MC30s in an MSU? How do you handle squadrons? I mean those questions rhetorically, and I merely mean to point out that based on how the fleet is described, the answers are not entirely thought through. This isn't to say that you don't have an answer to all these, you do, but that the games themselves might not play out in quite the way you think. On big ships, there's a question of when you've got "enough"? Having done the MC30/Lib for a very long time, the MC30 has to open up and drop all the shields basically, and then the Lib finishes. In this kind of set-up, something like Intel Officer just doesn't matter. Instead, Intel Officer is great when you have a single heavy hitter whose damage will otherwise always get braced.

Lib: The best small ship bully in the game, but you've got to build for it. GT is pretty much a must, not Caiten and Shoken. LS is also a must. Although the BC has great red dice, you still want to take as many blue shots as possible for the extra dice and the mods. Xi7 makes the lib a great MC30 killer and I love pairing it with Spinal, so no complaint there, but again, you want to maximize that arc and the fact that Madine can keep it pointed on multiple targets, so GT is essential for adding power to Spinal, and LS is essential for powering up your dice for both.

MC30T: APT makes it a reliable small ship platform. External Racks is ok here, I guess if you really want to save the points, it is ok. Still, that's damage that might get braced off, whereas APT goes off immediately. EWS: ok, I'd really have to try it on the MC30 because it is such a new upgrade, but that's also a ton of points sunk into the MC30.

Quantum/Slicers: I've always found this simply not to do enough.

Squadrons: You really should look at even deployments. The extra stand really doesn't get you much, and Shara is far better than Tycho in this set-up. Toryn is absolutely brutal with it. Against Sloan, you don't just stand there and take it. You've got to tank the Sloan rolls on your ships, because often the opponent doesn't have that strong of a follow-up from their ships, so you can afford to take a bit of damage and possibly lose a token or two. Then you counter with your speed-5 A-wings that can always position outside of a Sloan alpha. That should get you enough of a push off of your A-wings, and your ship AS that you wear down enough Sloan stands, and likely take as much of their points as you lose in your A-wings, if not more. Now, if you can get even one additional stand some way and can even up your deployments at 6, it can also really help out your start of game deployment and your anti-squadron. The more stands you get, the more likely you won't need EWS on the MC30, as well, and the additional stands also provide flexibility in how you play against MSU's because you've got a bit of plink squadron damage coming in to boost your ship shots.