This Is Double Spinal Tap (387/400)
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MC80 Battle Cruiser (103 + 61)
+ Admiral Raddus (26)
+ Walex Blissex (5)
+ Gunnery Team (7)
+ Leading Shots (4)
+ Quad Turbolaser Cannons (10)
+ Spinal Armament (9)
MC80 Assault Cruiser (114 + 32)
+ Strategic Adviser (4)
+ Electronic Countermeasures (7)
+ Leading Shots (4)
+ Enhanced Armament (10)
+ Home One (7)
Shara Bey (17)
Dutch Vander (16)
4 x A-wing Squadron (4 x 11)
Close-Range Intel Scan
Fire Lanes
Minefields

A huge bid, I know. And I'm not set on Squadrons yet (as I've always used A-Wings, but tried Han, X-Wings, YT-2400s with them, and haven't found the balance yet). But the fleet itself has been much more effective than I anticipated. The lack of activations doesn't bother me as much as it bothers my opponent, believe it or not. And Raddus gives it the flexibility that it always needed, but never had. I have flown this Fleet with Dodonna and Leia, but the problem I had was always the same: deployment. My Squadron game is a small fighter screen, so I don't get a lot of deployments out of it. So I get out to Floyd, and then home one doesn't necessarily end up on the correct side of the LMC-80 to do what I need it to do. Now, Home One lands on whichever side I want it.

The accuracy combo of Home One and QTC is definitely an expensive one, but it also allows me a guaranteed two accuracy on every shot out of that big front arc, and I've only ever rolled too many accuracies once. And I was at long range, so no Leading Shots. Be honest: what are the odds that I roll four accuracies on red dice in the same roll? Yes, red dice are swingy, and it can absolutely happen. But so rarely as to be a blip. I'm not sold on Strategic Advisor in this particular Fleet, but I'm going to play it several more times before I make a decision one way or the other. I do believe it's the right Officer for that slot, but time will tell.

Anyway, I know Raddus is most frequently used with the MC 75 and/or Profundity, but I've had fun and success with this build.

The only thing I would say is perhaps change out fire lanes and minefields? Realistically you will only be able to control one token per turn until the second mc80 arrives, and if your opponent brings strategic they can just steal the tokens from you, also with minefields if the opponent has strategic they will throw those mines at you (happened to me once). Maybe try solar corona as that would steal your opponents deployment advantage, and contested outpost, then your opponent will have to come and fall into the raddus trap

My understanding of fire Lanes is that I can control all the tokens with one ship, as long as I have enough guns pointed at them. There isn't anything written on the card saying that only one ship can control one token.

With regards to Minefield, that's definitely a valid concern. However, I have not found a navigation objective that better suits my fleet, and this one allows me as second player to place all obstacles. Ideally, I'm getting first player with a 13-point bid. Obviously, there are no guarantees, but I think that with a 13-point bid I'm more likely to get first than not. But yeah, with minefields, since I place all obstacles as well as all mines, if an opposing player manages to throw mines at me, then my opponent's ships are likely well out of position and I can pick them apart, or I completely blundered in my obstacle and mine placement. But I'm definitely open to suggestions as to a superior navigational objective! I've been looking, and scrutinizing, and I just can't find one that fits this Fleet any better. Even this one doesn't fit my fleet so much as it allows me to lay out the entire battlefield.

46 minutes ago, player2402036 said:

My understanding of fire Lanes is that I can control all the tokens with one ship, as long as I have enough guns pointed at them. There isn't anything written on the card saying that only one ship can control one token.

This is correct, btw.

46 minutes ago, player2402036 said:

But I'm definitely open to suggestions as to a superior navigational objective! I've been looking, and scrutinizing, and I just can't find one that fits this Fleet any better.

Nav hazards?

What's ironic is I didn't even blink at the bid. It's a normal bid for first in W7 land where there are a few fleets that need it to work.

I think your best bet is to drop 1x Awing, Dutch, and Strat Advisor off the MC80 and re purpose those into defensive upgrades.

Reason being, you don't have any squad pushers, but 4 Awings, one being Shara, don't really need them.

Once the MC80 is out of Raddus space you arent going to WANT to delay with St. Advi , that is pure turn 1or 2 stuff to avoid wandering into range.

and Dutch is just an odd choice. He will truly be underwhelming in this fleet without wasting a dial on squad commands.

That gives you a lot of points to add things that will be more helpful to you.

I would start with EWS and ECM on the Assault, Engine techs on the Liberty. Also Walex seems like a slot you could improve on. Defensively, you will find Lando probably better, and offensively, Intel officer can make that one big front arc shot you get really stick on the target you want. Either of these would be an improvement because you have double brace anyway and will often get the redirect locked down so you can't use it get it back to use Walex. He isn't pointless, just less than ideal.

As far as objectives go, I would think Solar Corona would hands down be your best blue since you have a single ship drop to start with so will be utterly outdeployed. Raddus helps fix that. But it still helps a lot.

Thanks for the clarification on Fire Lanes, svelok!

I thought about Nav Hazards, but my concern is that if my opponent gets to place obstacles and then move them, I'm not particularly agile, and I'm quite likely to run over stuff if my opponent can move obstacles. But you know what? I'm not certain, so I'll give it a try. Thanks!!

Hey Broba! Yeah, I hear what you're saying about Strategic and not wanting to wait once Home One hypers in. But I also found my best counter to squad heavy fleets is to slow-play, in which case I've enjoyed having the advisor for more than just a turn or so, you know? But if I'm honest, I don't like the card. I think it's really useful and a good include with most fleets! But I just don't like using a slot to delay. I want something more interesting (hence my trying Dutch in this fleet: I figure I can't go wrong with A-Wings, but I'm trying some variations to see if I can slow down the squadron game a little more, even though I know it will likely be like Han and the YT-2400s and not work out the way I'm messing with it).

I like the idea of Engine Techs, though! I tried Lando before Walex, but didn't like the consistency with which I still took hits I didn't want. With Walex, I find myself depending defense tokens a little more freely, countering my more conservative nature.

I like Solar Corona as an objective, but it seems to me that anyone who looks at my objective list will have absolutely no problem picking that over the other two options. I would like to make the choice a harder one. But maybe that's sort of just not an option with this particular fleet?

SC will get picked evenly with CRIS as that one can be a trap.

If I have an MSU, I would pick CRIS and force you to make the choice between locking down my def tokens and killing my ships or taking the objective points. Worst case I am no worse than I was before and you kill my ship, but if you let them live one turn longer by taking the objective points and I can destroy one of your ships and run away without losses trading the 15points is worth it.

Oh, yes, we wants our defensive upgrades ... We wants them!

So you start with 1 activation on the table, coupled with 4 deployments. That's a hopeless disadvantage. What use is the Strat Adv on a ship sitting in hyperspace? Once the pew pew starts activation count matters less - and you're still limited to 3 anyway.

Enter Raddus... but your Raddus has just 1 approach vector, make it impossible to surprise your opponent in any way. You even lack Engine Techs on the Battlecruiser.

To make it worse, I'll use my squads to block any favorable drop locations. And your squads won't be able to clear them out, only clog up the area even more.

Also, 13 pt bid is NOT huge. It's only sufficient vs low bidders, probably those who would rather play as 2nd anyway. Any fleet really wanting 1st player with bid much harder than this. 15. 17. 18. TBH anything less than 20 pts isn't a serious 1st player bid.

And your fleet isn't well designed to play as 2nd. You have no strategic or any other way to leverage your objectives. Minefileds is generally irrelevant. Fire Lanes can backfire on you in so many ways. CRIS won't earn you many pts before you're either dead - or spending those accs to try to kill stuff.

Walex...he can be useful, IF you are 1st player. If you are 2nd player, he will won't be able to trigger when you need him the most.

Not trying to be overly negative, but there is a lot of issues here.

On 4/10/2018 at 11:09 AM, BrobaFett said:

SC will get picked evenly with CRIS as that one can be a trap.

If I have an MSU, I would pick CRIS and force you to make the choice between locking down my def tokens and killing my ships or taking the objective points. Worst case I am no worse than I was before and you kill my ship, but if you let them live one turn longer by taking the objective points and I can destroy one of your ships and run away without losses trading the 15points is worth it.

It's funny, I thought the same thing specifically about CRIS, but so far, nobody has been willing to trade two accuracy for points, and I usually have more accuracies than I need. I figure the victory tokens are bonus if I get them. But if I'm getting a token or killing your ship, I'll take the kill every time.

Green, here's the thing: I love criticism. I need it to get better. But I'll also be honest: while I appreciate the input (and it's not invalid!), if I were a less experienced player, I don't know that I'd feel like you were trying to help instead of tear me down. It's all good, I'm just saying, it comes across hard rather than helpful.

That said, Raddus isn't there to surprise my opponent in the middle of the game (which, again, is why I think you guys are right about Strategic Advisor); he's there because Home One needs to be on the correct flank in order for the fleet to work. Owing to incredibly low deployments, where I should land Home One to cover my flank was always a guessing game. Now it's not. I deploy one ship, a few squadrons, then I wait. Home One lands before we're engaged. If you commit your squadrons that early to inconvenience me, I'll just make you pay for it. It's good to know that this bid isn't huge in a larger meta, but it's been more than enough to get me first in my own meta. But I'll examine it and make it bigger if I need to.

Again, I definitely appreciate the input, and I'll be applying some of it for sure. But I also tend to win more than lose with this fleet, even though that doesn't make much sense on paper. Walex is still fresh to my fleet, and he's been 1-1. I want to give him a little more time before I drop him for something else, though he is definitely a potential for the chopping block.

Ah I see what you are doing now and it makes more sense. A very early Raddus drop is a thing I have seen before, but is relatively uncommon overall since you trade your admiral bonus which can be quite sizable for a convenience in deployment. That said, if your fleet needs that positioning, then who can put a price on it?

I think that's the struggle I've had! I don't want to "waste" my commander, but I've tried others, and no commander has really given me the kick I've wanted, and then Raddus addressed the main roadblock I was hitting: Home One being on the wrong side of my LMC-80. As I've evaluated, I just haven't found a commander for this fleet that I like as much, I guess...

I think 1 more activation from SA is a waste. I would suggest using something else like Raymus, or Intel officer. I would also suggest that you could swap which ship you are coming in with, maybe change the Assault Cruiser to a Command Cruiser and use it as your flagship. This lets you push 4 squadrons a turn with its squad 4, and raymus can provide an extra token from turn 1 to get you the ability to ET turn 1 and 2, which is about all you will need to close in. Intel Officer is also a good option in fleets that do not have the number of shots to over heat token. You are effectively shooting twice a turn at a ship, Intel O cuts through tokens very fast even with few shots. My advise would be Intel O on both ships and XI-7s. Just keep targeting the brace with IO and let the XI-7 take care of the redirects.