Now, I am only speaking from my OWN experience (subjective analysis ahead)

I just need to get this off of my chest: Initially, I thought that the new MC-75 Ordnance Cruiser was the only viable option of the two in regards to dishing out massive amounts of damage. I turned out that I was horribly wrong. Please let me know how you typically use your MC-75 and the amount of succes that you have had with it!

I will first present the loadout I typically use for the Armored Cruiser below and then discuss it a bit:

[ flagship ] MC75 Armored Cruiser (104 points)
- Commander Sato ( 32 points)
- Damage Control Officer ( 5 points)
- Caitken and Shollan ( 6 points)
- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
- Heavy Ion Emplacements ( 9 points)
- Assault Concussion Missiles ( 7 points)

Most notably, Sato is commanding this vessel and it has therefore been outfitted with both Assault Concussion Missiles (ACM) and Heavy Ion Emplacements (HIE). The idea is that I use Sato to swap two dice to blue dice when entering combat with another ship so that the chance of proccing HIE increases. Even at long range, dealing two damage will actually result in three shields being removed in addition to the two damage. At medium range, such an attack becomes even more devastating. When there are no more shields, Sato can be used to swap two dice for black dice and start working on proccing ACM to remove whatever hull remains.

This is also the reason for not using X17 as the goal is to completely render the use of Redirect redundant.

I find that this setup actually gets the job done more rapidly than the Ordnance Cruiser, despite the Ordnance boasting two Ordnance slots. Especially against large ships, stripping away 3 shields without being able to mitigate the damage is bonkers, according to my own experience.

The most difficult aspect is positioning and navigating the ship to its intended target and delivering the payload. In some cases, I have torn down an ISD in two turns while at other times I merely wound a large ship as it escaped me for the rest of the game. The lack of yaw can is a significant drawback of this ship, unsurprisingly and needs to be factored when commanding the Armored Cruiser in battle.

Has anyone else tried the Armored Cruiser in all it's glory and what experiences do you have commanding or fighting against it?

4 minutes ago, Hawkwing said:

Now, I am only speaking from my OWN experience (subjective analysis ahead)

I just need to get this off of my chest: Initially, I thought that the new MC-75 Ordnance Cruiser was the only viable option of the two in regards to dishing out massive amounts of damage. I turned out that I was horribly wrong. Please let me know how you typically use your MC-75 and the amount of succes that you have had with it!

I will first present the loadout I typically use for the Armored Cruiser below and then discuss it a bit:

[ flagship ] MC75 Armored Cruiser (104 points)
- Commander Sato ( 32 points)
- Damage Control Officer ( 5 points)
- Caitken and Shollan ( 6 points)
- Electronic Countermeasures ( 7 points)
- Heavy Ion Emplacements ( 9 points)
- Assault Concussion Missiles ( 7 points)

Most notably, Sato is commanding this vessel and it has therefore been outfitted with both Assault Concussion Missiles (ACM) and Heavy Ion Emplacements (HIE). The idea is that I use Sato to swap two dice to blue dice when entering combat with another ship so that the chance of proccing HIE increases. Even at long range, dealing two damage will actually result in three shields being removed in addition to the two damage. At medium range, such an attack becomes even more devastating. When there are no more shields, Sato can be used to swap two dice for black dice and start working on proccing ACM to remove whatever hull remains.

This is also the reason for not using X17 as the goal is to completely render the use of Redirect redundant.

I find that this setup actually gets the job done more rapidly than the Ordnance Cruiser, despite the Ordnance boasting two Ordnance slots. Especially against large ships, stripping away 3 shields without being able to mitigate the damage is bonkers, according to my own experience.

The most difficult aspect is positioning and navigating the ship to its intended target and delivering the payload. In some cases, I have torn down an ISD in two turns while at other times I merely wound a large ship as it escaped me for the rest of the game. The lack of yaw can is a significant drawback of this ship, unsurprisingly and needs to be factored when commanding the Armored Cruiser in battle.

Has anyone else tried the Armored Cruiser in all it's glory and what experiences do you have commanding or fighting against it?

You made me sad. Why not xx9 and Fire control Team? Max the crits max the fun.

3 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

You made me sad. Why not xx9 and Fire control Team? Max the crits max the fun.

I did say "typical loadout" right? I've made the Fire Control Team combo work ONCE and it was worth it :b But I really prefer the "safer" alternative for consistency

1 minute ago, Hawkwing said:

I did say "typical loadout" right? I've made the Fire Control Team combo work ONCE and it was worth it :b But I really prefer the "safer" alternative for consistency

I would like to see that works!

Actually I like your idea. It has some common problems like, you know, Sato, but who cares. There must be a way to make him work even if it is just through practice.

2 minutes ago, ovinomanc3r said:

I would like to see that works!

Actually I like your idea. It has some common problems like, you know, Sato, but who cares. There must be a way to make him work even if it is just through practice.

I typically run a 87 point squadron setup consisting of: Shara, Tycho, 2x VCX & 2x HWK. If I am player two, I usually play the fish farm objectives and use the squads very defensively. If going first, I still keep the squads close and only launch them at a target IF I also can manage to fire a couple of shots with the Cruiser. As you point out though, Sato only works with squads, so if they are gunned down, you basically lost your admiral.

But the good thing is that Tycho and Shara are usually tough to bring down. Moreover, the two VCX also take quite a few shots to bring down - all of this is just meant to buy your Cruiser more time to finish its job and move on.

One thing that I struggle with is bringing more than one threat with this fleet, though. The Cruiser + Sato + Squads are mandatory to my list, so a secondary threat is difficult to include. My secondary threat for now consists of an Admonition with ACM or Salvation (depending on mood)

1 hour ago, Hawkwing said:

Has anyone else tried the Armored Cruiser in all it's glory and what experiences do you have commanding or fighting against it?

This is the first ship build that made me want to try Sato! Thanks for the inspiration, I will have to try designing a fleet with this concept.

I wouldn’t call running two different crit upgrades without Fire Control teams the “safe option.” If you use Fire Control Team, Leading Shots, ACM, and XX-9, you get benefit of two crit effects without needing two different colored crit icons.

1 hour ago, comatose said:

I wouldn’t call running two different crit upgrades without Fire Control teams the “safe option.” If you use Fire Control Team, Leading Shots, ACM, and XX-9, you get benefit of two crit effects without needing two different colored crit icons.

Also a very viable option ☺ but I am taking HIE into account. There is no need to keep proccing this effect when there are no shields remaining. That is why I am furthering the point that HIE + ACM is more safe than HIE, XX-9 and FCT, As Ovino suggested ☺

MC75 Armored Cruiser (104)
• Lando Calrissian (4)
• Boarding Troopers (3)
• Electronic Countermeasures (7)
• External Racks (3)
• Leading Shots (4)
• Quad Battery Turrets (5)
• Aspiration (3)
= 133 Points

A pretty decent thing to Raddus drop in the front arc of another large ship. You can tank the counter-attack and keep them stuck in place due to the large base size and with some help from Hondo or Comms Net (I prefer Hondo), you can trigger the Boarding Troopers before double-arcing for (External Racks, Con Fire, QBTs in each shot) 15 total dice.

The Armored Cruiser is a Generalist hull the Assault frigate wants to be. It has decent speed, a large upgrade suite, and good enough firepower all around.