About a month ago, I went to our regional tournament running my standard Imperial list... that I had run many times, and was pretty familiar with. Screed, ISD1, Demo, that sort of stuff. To say I got curb stomped would be an understatement. While I’ve tried to block the trauma out, if I recall correctly over the 4 round tournament I was able to destroy 1 enemy ship and 2 enemy squadrons... that’s it. I was tabled twice, and beaten like a red-headed stepchild the other two times. Needless to say, I was a tad salty afterwards, ready to sell off my Armada collection and burn anything that wasn’t sold.

Reason prevailed, and I decided it was time for a change. So I went full 180, and built a new Rebel list (for me). Mind you, the last time I ran rebels was about 2 years ago, and it was an Ackbar 80/30/30 list. Yes it did well (top 2 or 3 during store championships I think), but I had little doubt it would hold up today.

So, in with the new! Dodonna! All the cards! Make them recycle their discard deck! Optimization? Not on your life! But it was a new frontier, and I wanted to try it out.

Faction: Rebel Alliance
Points: 396/400

Commander: General Dodonna

Assault Objective: Most Wanted
Defense Objective: Fleet Ambush
Navigation Objective: Solar Corona

[ flagship ] MC75 Ordnance Cruiser (100 points)
- General Dodonna ( 20 points)
- Aspiration ( 3 points)
- Strategic Adviser ( 4 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Reinforced Blast Doors ( 5 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
- External Racks ( 3 points)
= 144 total ship cost

CR90 Corvette B (39 points)
- Dodonnas Pride ( 6 points)
- Leading Shots ( 4 points)
= 49 total ship cost

GR-75 Medium Transports (18 points)
- Bright Hope ( 2 points)
- Leia Organa ( 3 points)
- Bomber Command Center ( 8 points)
= 31 total ship cost

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36 points)
- Garel's Honor ( 4 points)
- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)
- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)
= 49 total ship cost

Hammerhead Torpedo Corvette (36 points)
- External Racks ( 3 points)
= 39 total ship cost

1 Luke Skywalker ( 20 points)
1 X-Wing Squadron ( 13 points)
1 YT-1300 ( 13 points)
1 Biggs Darklighter ( 19 points)
1 Jan Ors ( 19 points)
= 84 total squadron cost

Round 1 I was up against another Dodonna list.

MC80 Command, Dodonna, with stuff (Adar Tallon, Independence, etc), AF2B with ECM, DTT, Comms Net GR75, and fighters.... Jan, Ten Numb, 5 B-Wings, 2 X-Wings.

I was player 2, he chose my Solar Corona.

Deployment

Idea was to run the CR90 around the outside to give the other ships time to tie up the enemy so it wouldn’t be killed early on. The MC75 was acting as a shield to my smaller ships. Kill the 80 quickly then focus on the AF2.

End of 1. Not much happening.

End of 2. I’m preparing for bombers that were a lot faster than I expected them to be to attack me. This may hurt.

End of 3. Lost my GR75 when I decided to activate it first with a squadron command and token to stop some of his bombers from hitting me. This put it in medium range of the MC80, and after a few minutes discussion we determined that the accuracy from his con fire command wasn’t affected by the Solar Corona rule.

End of 4. I had been hoping the 2 Hammerheads may be able to take out the AF2. They didn’t. The 75 also didn’t do enough damage to the 80 to do anything meaningful.

We we only got to play 5 turns due to time, but in the end he only destroyed my GR75 and I only destroyed a B-Wing and an X-Wing. An embarrassing 27-31 loss.

Round 2, I was up against a Sloane ISD / Quasar list, rocking an ISD2 with various shooty upgrades, a Quasar with Sloane, Squall, Grint, FC, BC, EHB, a Goz with Hondo and Comms Net, Howlrunner, Dengar, and 7 Interceptors!

I was player 1, and picked his Planetsry Ion over his Most Wanted our Superior Positions (I didn’t have enough fighters to protect the rear of my ships, and I had no doubt the outcome of a most wanted matchup.). I wasn’t terribly worried about this, since I’ve rarely seen the Ion Cannons do a whole lot of damage.

Deployment. Go fast, go hard, kill the Quasar. Simple enough plan.

End of 1. Sticking to the plan.

End of 2. His ion cannon did how much to that right side Hammerhead (Garel’s Honor)?!?!? 3 hits and a crit... ugh.

End of 3. I had plopped the GR75 right in front of the ISD for some unknown reason. It died. The double arc shot from the 75 onto the ISD was less than impressive.

End of 4. I’ve killed Sloane’s Quasar. In return I’ve lost 2 Hammerheads and a GR75. I’m not sure this was a good exchange.

End of 5. I destroyed the Gozanti. I lost 3 squads in the process..

Turn 6 was just running away so no picture.

128-171 loss. Ehh, not horrible, I see what I did wrong.

PRound 3. Playing an interesting list. Motti with 2 Cymoons and 2 VSD1’s, no upgrades. I’m player 1 again, running his dangerous territory.

Deployment. Pincer movement, try to avoid the fronts of those Cymoons.

End of 1. Of course my GR75 pulled a structural when I landed on the asteroid... and the HH landing on a debris field took the damage on the rear, so 2 ships already have not insignificant damage. Fortunately repairs are queued up.

End of 2. I’m happy with the MC75 position, double arcing the Victory in front of it, with the CR90 backing it up if needed. The other side of the table... we don’t talk about that.

End of 3. The first Victory was destroyed by the MC75, but it took both arcs, plus 5e external racks, plus a concentrate fire, and led expert rerolls. I’m hoping his red Cymoon doesn’t have any way to avoid flying off the table. As you can see, I lost a HH and GR in the turn.

End of 4. Chasing that other Victory hard. Hoping to get Garel’s Honor into it and then blast it with other stuff. Yes, the red Cymoon slowed down...

End of 5. So did I mention that if I rammed with Garel’s Honor that it would block my MC75 from catching his Victory? Oh, well I figured that out while fiddling with he maneuver tool. So where else can it go? Yeah, a spot on the right side of the Victory with it being double arced front and side sounds good! It disappeared shortly after. I’m also trying to figure out how I’m going to do enough damage with my ships to destroy this Victory to pull a win.

No picture at the end of 6, but it was pretty anti-climatic. The MC75 barely had a double arc shot that whiffed so badly I almost don’t want to mention it. Between the 5 black dice with ordnance experts, I failed to roll a single crit. The CR90 was going to have to pull 4 damage to kill the ship. It did have a con fire dial queued up though! And then the Victory turned to avoid the board edge, but ended up off the table by about 2 mm. So in the end it was a 191-164 win for me.

Lessons learned. The GR-75 was too expensive, and I didn’t use the title at all, didn’t use Leia at all, and only used the BCC maybe a handful of times. It’s been replaced with just a Comms net and Leia. The HH’s are too fragile. Their defense tokens don’t let them get in close where they need to be to function at their maximum. They’ve been replaced. The CR90 needs to get in the fight faster. It now has engine techs. Aspiration is a great title for Raddus drops, but only got in the way for me today (not being able to pull shields back when I needed them during round 2 as the most glaring example). It’s been dropped.

Fun games, and makes me less grumpy about Armada again.