I've been toying around with extremes of the game lately, trying to find things that break. Leia is seriously expensive, but like many commanders gets significantly better with each additional friendly ship on the board. So I thought about what commands/ships get the most use out of Leia:
Concentrate fire isn't so great, since you only get an extra reroll a turn, which is often only desirable on big salvo ships, many of which already have their own reroll abilities like Leading Shots.
Navigate could be decent, but increasing speed by two in a turn is really a once a game thing, so a standard banked token will accomplish that. Maybe a Liberty with Nav Teams could get something out of it, though.
Engineering is getting there, but still a little on the shoddy side. Fantastic on ships like the Interdictor... except that's Imperial. In addition, getting more mileage out of engineering with Leia using numerous small ships is self-contradictory - flotillas will die in a shot when they do die, and small-based ships fall in a single round of focused fire.
Squadrons are also pretty weak, since a token doesn't give you half your squadron value, but instead a single extra squadron activation. The typical fleet carriers don't really like that and prefer commanders that keep them alive. However, realised that flotillas could benefit massively from this. The basic GR-75 is 18 points, and 18 points for three squadron activations based from a ship with scatter is absurd. It got me thinking about the potential and so, I present to you:
Commander: Leia Organa
Assault Objective:
Most Wanted
Defense Objective:
Fighter Ambush
Navigation Objective:
Superior Positions
[ flagship ]
MC80 Battle Cruiser
(103 points)
- Leia Organa ( 38 points)
-
Liberty
( 3 points)
- Intel Officer ( 7 points)
- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)
- Nav Team ( 4 points)
- X17 Turbolasers ( 6 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
=
172
total ship cost
GR-75 Medium Transports
(18 points)
-
Bright Hope
( 2 points)
- Jamming Field ( 2 points)
=
22
total ship cost
GR-75 Medium Transports
(18 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
=
22
total ship cost
GR-75 Medium Transports
(18 points)
- Boosted Comms ( 4 points)
=
22
total ship cost
GR-75 Medium Transports
(18 points)
=
18
total ship cost
12
Z-95 Headhunter Squadrons
( 84 points)
1
Lietenant Blount
( 14 points)
3
HWK-290s
( 36 points)
=
134
total squadron cost
Totalling 390 Points.
The MC-80 acts as a durable flagship, and presents an enormous flanking threat. The 4 GR-75s aren't really intended for fighter-to-fighter combat, although Blount helps with that. Instead, the GR-75s are intended to simply fly every single Z-95 to the nearest capital ship and destroy it in a turn or two. The three HWKs make it fairly reliable at doing so. Each GR-75 can activate three squadrons while using Leia, and the MC can catch the other 4 with its title and Leia combined.
The bid and objectives will hopefully assure a victory, but I'm not familiar with the meta, so I don't know what the bids are, save that Avenger ISDs have high bids. If I can choose to, I'll be second player, as any of those objectives give a truly massive advantage so so many squadrons:
Most wanted gives each of the Z-95s two red dice when attacking the enemy flagship.
Fighter Ambush gives 15 VPs every time a squadron does damage to a ship.
Superior positions helps immensely in setup and gives me even more reason to flank.
Is there anything that will wreck this kind of build, and what can I do to prepare against it?
.