First, here is the list I took to my local store championship.

I'm still fairly inexperienced in actually maneuvering, so MSU is probably hard mode, especially w/ Leia as commander. I 0-2'd the championship, getting the bye in the last round, and was tabled by the eventual champion (Jabbawookie here, to whom congrats are owed!). But I love packing activations into my list, and I also loved being able to flexibly shift commands thanks to command 1.

My problem, ultimately, I think, is experience. But I want to remove factors like list-building issues. Leia's a pet project of mine, despite her expense and somewhat unforgiving nature. So rather than theory-craft in a vacuum, I thought to come here and get opinions from the wider world of Armada players.

Currently, I have one of every expansion EXCEPT the following: Corellian Conflict, Gladiator, Victory, CR90, Rogues and Villains, Home One, MC30, Interdictor, Liberty, Rebel Squads 2, Imperial Light Cruiser, and Chimaera. I've pieced together two extra Y-wing squads and the Corellian Conflict aces for Y-wings, but I'm otherwise operating w/ the collection that gives me. So I know I'm missing several "standard" upgrades, but I'm hoping that I'm not crippled by such a situation.

Let me know what you think. I'm open to a lot. Thanks so much!

A few things,

Experience is always helpful. It took me several games to get a grasp of things and I am still learning so don't let the lack of experience discourage you.

Second as for upgrades, I would just proxy for friendly games. Most players are happy with that, around hear we even allow proxies in relaxed tournaments. Store Championships while relaxed by definition are generally a little more formal so you probably need cards for that but ask a friend if they have cards you can borrow.

There are a few expansions that are currently hard/impossible to find but see if you can budget for an expansion every month or two.

As for your list, I want Leia to be good for so many reasons but unfortunately she just isn't great, she either needs to be cheaper or remove her restriction. Hammerheads are fun but squishy and I think with only 2 Taskforce Antillies isn't gonna get great value. I feel like those taskforce cards need 3-4 ships to be effective. But as stated before, Hammerheads are one of the expansions that are getting very hard to find at the moment.

Yavaris needs a lot of support to be effective like Adar Tallon or other ways to push squads into activation without activating them but it is a good choice for Leia as you can always activate 3 squads.

The Corellian should be hitting stores soon, I would recommend getting that and at lease one of each squad pack that you don't have if you can find them. That adds so much variety to your list building. Maybe pick a faction and try and fill it out first before crossing the aisle.

https://cannotgetyourshipout.blogspot.com/2017/08/know-your-enemycommanders-corner-leia.html?m=1

https://cannotgetyourshipout.blogspot.com/2018/08/workable-insanity-aka-johns-gencon-wrap.html

@geek19

42 minutes ago, TheCallum said:

https://cannotgetyourshipout.blogspot.com/2017/08/know-your-enemycommanders-corner-leia.html?m=1

https://cannotgetyourshipout.blogspot.com/2018/08/workable-insanity-aka-johns-gencon-wrap.html

Those legit are what spurred me to make my Leia list in the first place!

54 minutes ago, Thrindal said:

A few things,

Experience is always helpful. It took me several games to get a grasp of things and I am still learning so don't let the lack of experience discourage you.

Second as for upgrades, I would just proxy for friendly games. Most players are happy with that, around hear we even allow proxies in relaxed tournaments. Store Championships while relaxed by definition are generally a little more formal so you probably need cards for that but ask a friend if they have cards you can borrow.

There are a few expansions that are currently hard/impossible to find but see if you can budget for an expansion every month or two.

As for your list, I want Leia to be good for so many reasons but unfortunately she just isn't great, she either needs to be cheaper or remove her restriction. Hammerheads are fun but squishy and I think with only 2 Taskforce Antillies isn't gonna get great value. I feel like those taskforce cards need 3-4 ships to be effective. But as stated before, Hammerheads are one of the expansions that are getting very hard to find at the moment.

Yavaris needs a lot of support to be effective like Adar Tallon or other ways to push squads into activation without activating them but it is a good choice for Leia as you can always activate 3 squads.

The Corellian should be hitting stores soon, I would recommend getting that and at lease one of each squad pack that you don't have if you can find them. That adds so much variety to your list building. Maybe pick a faction and try and fill it out first before crossing the aisle.

Antilles did only really wind up helping me once in my games, making the six points for the pair of titles less than valuable. I do want to get a swarm of them (another player at the Championship and I both got Hammerhead promos and she passed hers to me in prep for my having four, so fingers crossed), though, so maybe at that point they will be more valuable.

The one thing I've grown to appreciate w/ Leia is her ability to turn any ship, regardless of Squadron value, into a little pocket carrier. I had some luck in pushing squads w/ the Hammerheads and the corvette. Adar Tallon seems like a solid contender, but at 10 points and my fighters being not-ideal bombers (despite being bombers, they're no B-wings), I worry that he won't get his points back in my currently fairly squadless meta.

Thank you for chiming in, though! Discussion like this is super valuable.

So, Leia. I may have written a few...thousand words on her. General thoughts before i finally get around to rewriting some things with her commander write up soon enough.

You're going to need to skimp on upgrades with her, as far as i can tell. Leia IS your upgrade, so keep her alive. Your strategy is going to lean towards just dogpiling in damage into things. I can never find full points for stronger turbolaser upgrades or Xi7s or intel officers (im aware you dont have any of those, yes). The strength of her is (as im sure youve seen) the ability to do one thing REALLY good this turn. Super carrier, super better con fire, super nav, or better engineering (i.... may need to try it more, but eh).

What this means is that you really DONT have points for "that would be nice" upgrades (in my experience). Adar, Xi7s, C&S, Slaved, theoretically gold squadron (the points for it are nice, but if those 2 points gets me somethign i need more....)

i echo what a lot of people above say about 2 hammerheads either needing a friend or to lose one. I've had very good experiences with Leia, Salvation, and DTTs. The Jaina's Light is always good as you built it.

I'm.... hesitant about Yavaris. It's great, 3 squads is always good, but you want those squads to be WORTH hitting. Scurrgs or B-wings or some such, potentially. Pouring 6 dice (3 y-wings) vs pouring 12 (3 B-wings) are 2 vastly different things. Finding points, of course....

If you want to keep Yav, try to get some more squads in there IMO. Adding in a GR will ALSO help a lot as you'll get an extra activation. I don't mind the AF, but im not sure im ecstatic about the loadout. C&S don't seem great there, so maybe DTTs or TRCs over Xi7s? Also Yav should be the 57 point escort version, not the 51 point support refit. Maybe add in Toryn too to help the flak?

On 8/31/2018 at 2:47 PM, geek19 said:

So, Leia. I may have written a few...thousand words on her. General thoughts before i finally get around to rewriting some things with her commander write up soon enough.

You're going to need to skimp on upgrades with her, as far as i can tell. Leia IS your upgrade, so keep her alive. Your strategy is going to lean towards just dogpiling in damage into things. I can never find full points for stronger turbolaser upgrades or Xi7s or intel officers (im aware you dont have any of those, yes). The strength of her is (as im sure youve seen) the ability to do one thing REALLY good this turn. Super carrier, super better con fire, super nav, or better engineering (i.... may need to try it more, but eh).

What this means is that you really DONT have points for "that would be nice" upgrades (in my experience). Adar, Xi7s, C&S, Slaved, theoretically gold squadron (the points for it are nice, but if those 2 points gets me somethign i need more....)

i echo what a lot of people above say about 2 hammerheads either needing a friend or to lose one. I've had very good experiences with Leia, Salvation, and DTTs. The Jaina's Light is always good as you built it.

I'm.... hesitant about Yavaris. It's great, 3 squads is always good, but you want those squads to be WORTH hitting. Scurrgs or B-wings or some such, potentially. Pouring 6 dice (3 y-wings) vs pouring 12 (3 B-wings) are 2 vastly different things. Finding points, of course....

If you want to keep Yav, try to get some more squads in there IMO. Adding in a GR will ALSO help a lot as you'll get an extra activation. I don't mind the AF, but im not sure im ecstatic about the loadout. C&S don't seem great there, so maybe DTTs or TRCs over Xi7s? Also Yav should be the 57 point escort version, not the 51 point support refit. Maybe add in Toryn too to help the flak?

I somehow didn't realize when you first posted your advice that you were my Leia inspiration!

So last night at one of our local Armada nights, I tried this out. Four Hammerheads, Jaina's, a StM Pelta, and a flotilla, with a B-wing surprise (my meta's super squad-light, so the B-wings were kind of a lark). I wound up pulling a super solid 8-3 MoV against an opponent running Motti, 2 ISDs, and a rather uncharacteristic squadron-ball.

I have learned more about the value of Command 1 ships to Leia - being able to pivot into a powerful dial every turn is really the only thing she brings to the table, so having most (all but one ship) of a fleet Command 1 super makes a difference. I totally didn't win the squad game (2 B-wings vs. 4 TIEs, Saber, Jendon, and friends), but I also didn't lose much to them either.

I don't think either side had a perfectly optimal build - I know that two copies of Boarding Engineers is superfluous, and my goofy B-wing trap isn't worth the 32 points (except in lulz), but it's a lot better than my first try, and it's a lot more fun to pilot.