So putting aside the terrific stats put together by CGYSO, what are people's thoughts on where things currently stand? Who seems to have the edge. What's popular and what's dead where you are?

For my money I more or less hate the Pelta (the command vesion can be "ok") and am thrilled to have the Liberator around now so I don't always have to drag it along. I always feel like this thing is a point sink. It's squishy, slow, only has a moderate defense token suite, no def retrofit and is an unreliable damage dealer at best. Engine Techs and Aux Shields Team help but this seems like trying to make a poor chassis passable rather than truly effective. I keep bringing it because my opponent (imp) always seems to be leveraging fleet commands himself but he's doing that from the bridge of an ISD or an SSD which seems a tad unfair.

Also is Squall a bit too much? Between it's fighters and Demolisher the rebels can't really outmaneuver or stall either before a lot of damage has been done. I know the rebels have their tricks too but barring Raddus, they seem to take more work/luck to setup and seems to rely more on the enemy making a mistake rather than you maneuvering him into one which tends to put the rebels on the defensive a lot. Demolisher isn't invulnerable but I'm scared to death of not bringing fighters to deal with it. Squall also seems to give the Imperials a pretty ridiculous pounce range.

Are the rebels playing the defense more where you are? Is it even? Rebel advantage? Would love to hear people's current thoughts.

Why does everybody ignore Gencon?
Rebels took 1st and 2nd place.

The rebels that took 1st and 2nd place were the ONLY lists that brought peltas. 1st place commander was GARM, I think that speaks VOLUMES.

Lets keep in mind that Imperials finally won a worlds this year and it wasn't another Rieekan Yavaris blow out.

Both sides have strengths and weaknesses, it all depends on what the meta is like in YOUR local area. One mans trash is another's treasure.
One side is not "stronger" than the other, much of that is just appearances especially when they are well practiced lists flown by well practiced players.

That said, we have no idea what our meta is even going to look like for Regionals because we finally have brand new released product after 2 years. SSD, RitR are out in the wilds now, Starhawk and Ongar are on track for release end of Dec.
No one has a clue whats going to be good in time for worlds (Much less LVO in january!)

In short, the sky isn't falling, nobody has a clue whats going to be good and you will see lots of new things getting explore, and that is fantastic.

On 10/8/2019 at 8:09 AM, Garrett17 said:

I keep bringing it because my opponent (imp) always seems to be leveraging fleet commands himself but he's doing that from the bridge of an ISD or an SSD which seems a tad unfair.

I never understood this complaint. The Pelta is a way better fleet command platform than an ISD and I really hate that the empire only has access to the upgrade through ISDs or SSDs. (Lets leave All Fighters Follow Me! aside for now) The value you get out of your Fleet Command upgrade directly scales with the amount of ships you bring and if you already have to bring an ISD there just isn't a whole lot of room for other ships. At best you can squeeze in 3 additional Arquitens. On the rebel side you can take up to 6 additional CR90s next to a Pelta. That is 7 ships. You get almost twice the value out of your Fleet Commands as a Rebel player.

It's because the pelta is fairly useless platform unless you upgrade it. My friend typically wants to bring an ISD anyway so it's no skin off his nose. And he's made room for Demolisher, and a pair of raiders on top.

I suppose in a sense both sides have to make a point commitment to bring them along but the Imperials get a useful ship that can leverage those commands in and of itself. I don't think the Pelta can say the same as generally it's not going to enter the think of the fight until late. In my case it's also a constant victim of Demolisher. I start out with more activations but one transport or corvette out of place and poof. Activation count shifts and suddenly I can be last-firsted and down goes the Pelta. Typically this happens at the hands of a flanking cymoon travelling at high speed running gunnery teams, h9s and QTCs. He'll catch a flotilla just the edge of his firing arc and it's gone.

Now that the Harrow has arrived I really shudder as a rebel player. A long range shot of six base with dcaps and then it can close and pound rapidly. I'm happy to have Liberator and Vanguard but I do think the imps got the better end of the deal. Corvus with iden makes for one sneaky HIE platform.

My local meta has really seen a lot of Imperial players doing well.

We also have some very good Rebel players that have been killing it.

Honestly, our local events have come down to who gets matched with who, and then who makes the better decisions. Primarily we've seen Sloane, Sato, Ackbar, Thrawn, and Jerry. Sometimes Motti.

8 minutes ago, Garrett17 said:

Now that the Harrow has arrived I really shudder as a rebel player. A long range shot of six base with dcaps and then it can close and pound rapidly. I'm happy to have Liberator and Vanguard but I do think the imps got the better end of the deal. Corvus with iden makes for one sneaky HIE platform.

I'm usually an Imp player, but Vanguard actually excites me the most out of all the new titles. Redirect, Auxiliary Shield Teams and Ruthless Strategists on a Neb... that's a dangerous carrier that has some pretty good defenses.

There was a fairly big tournament in London this weekend; 3 rounds, 17 players, 12 Imperials, 5 Rebels, 4 SSDs. 1st and 2nd were SSDs, and I think there may have only been one Rebel in top 8 [Disclaimer: this was pre-RitR, which wasn't out in the UK, and kind of still isn't].

However, I think that may be due to Rebels being a bit less interesting/fun at the moment, rather than them being worse. While the really good people are doing great things with Rebels, competitive lists that us mortals can make work seem to be limited to Rieekan swarms with heavy squadrons, which can be a boring and tedious to play with. And I'm not sure how well they do against SSDs.

As someone who prefers playing with big ships throwing lots of dice, I'm pretty much resigned to playing only Imperials competitively until the Starhawk comes out. Hopefully that will fix Rebel Large ships.

7 hours ago, Karneck said:

Why does everybody ignore Gencon?
Rebels took 1st and 2nd place.

The rebels that took 1st and 2nd place were the ONLY lists that brought peltas. 1st place commander was GARM, I think that speaks VOLUMES.

They dont count because..... uhhhhh.... shmitty hasn't written an article in a while!

(Ignores my lack of blog posts, IVE been busy)

Also, peltas are great cheap carriers. Stop trying to make them "fetch" and they're solid.

I'm really hoping the volley tokens essentially allow us to ease up on Rieekan. I'm not a fan of his crutch like ability or Raddus' bomb drop. They both seem like big edges whose value is hard to screw up and as such they don't feel "fair" in a sense. My preferred commander at the moment is Madine because it feels more like he only allows me the ability to largely do what I'd be able to do normally without him if I was just a better forward planner.

Back to Harrow for a sec, I just realized it throws more long range forward facing dice than the executor II, a ship that doesn't even fit in a standard game! Put gunnery teams on that...

As a rebel we generally don't match the Empire shot for shot and often have to make up the difference with bombers but Squall's ability to tie those guys up really tends to ruin my day(s).

The traditional trade off has been the rebel get maneuverability while the Imperials get firepower. Recently I feel like the Imperials have gotten a big boost to both (TEA, Harrow, SSD) but I'm not sure the rebels got much.

56 minutes ago, Garrett17 said:

I'm really hoping the volley tokens essentially allow us to ease up on Rieekan. I'm not a fan of his crutch like ability or Raddus' bomb drop. They both seem like big edges whose value is hard to screw up and as such they don't feel "fair" in a sense. My preferred commander at the moment is Madine because it feels more like he only allows me the ability to largely do what I'd be able to do normally without him if I was just a better forward planner.

Back to Harrow for a sec, I just realized it throws more long range forward facing dice than the executor II, a ship that doesn't even fit in a standard game! Put gunnery teams on that...

As a rebel we generally don't match the Empire shot for shot and often have to make up the difference with bombers but Squall's ability to tie those guys up really tends to ruin my day(s).

The traditional trade off has been the rebel get maneuverability while the Imperials get firepower. Recently I feel like the Imperials have gotten a big boost to both (TEA, Harrow, SSD) but I'm not sure the rebels got much.

Post-RitR they do have the best Raid generators with Rex and Kanan.

With Krysta Admiral and Officer granting those Salvo tokens, at least one of your Rebel ships will have more teeth, and if Wedge looks like he does what I think he does, you'll have "Hit and run" squad tactics - pop out of an asteroid, do an attack, and at the end of squad phase cloak back onto the asteroid.

Also the Star Hawk itself. I pre-ordered one, and asked for a 2nd from Future Mrs. EO for Christmas* just to be able to field two big heavies, the Rebel equiv of dual ISD.

(*FFG time not withstanding)

2 hours ago, Garrett17 said:

It's because the pelta is fairly useless platform unless you upgrade it. My friend typically wants to bring an ISD anyway so it's no skin off his nose. And he's made room for Demolisher, and a pair of raiders on top.

I suppose in a sense both sides have to make a point commitment to bring them along but the Imperials get a useful ship that can leverage those commands in and of itself. I don't think the Pelta can say the same as generally it's not going to enter the think of the fight until late. In my case it's also a constant victim of Demolisher. I start out with more activations but one transport or corvette out of place and poof. Activation count shifts and suddenly I can be last-firsted and down goes the Pelta. Typically this happens at the hands of a flanking cymoon travelling at high speed running gunnery teams, h9s and QTCs. He'll catch a flotilla just the edge of his firing arc and it's gone.

Now that the Harrow has arrived I really shudder as a rebel player. A long range shot of six base with dcaps and then it can close and pound rapidly. I'm happy to have Liberator and Vanguard but I do think the imps got the better end of the deal. Corvus with iden makes for one sneaky HIE platform.

3 B Wings, correctly handled, will solve your opponent's Demolisher fetish for good. You only need 2 B Wings to ruin a Raider's day. If you put them with Hera Syndulla you don't even need to command them. I play Imperials most of the time and my opponent loves his B Wings, and I hate them because they will ruin any ship's day.

The other thing you could do is play that Cymoon at its own game, and use Ackbar and a pair of MC80 assault cruisers. Let's see how long his ships last when you're throwing 16 red dice per turn at him.

5 hours ago, Garrett17 said:

It's because the pelta is fairly useless platform unless you upgrade it.

But what speaks against upgrading your Pelta? Not every ship has to be good naked.

5 hours ago, Garrett17 said:

I suppose in a sense both sides have to make a point commitment to bring them along but the Imperials get a useful ship that can leverage those commands in and of itself.

The Pelta can too. A Dcaps, Intensify Firepower! Pelta can pack a punch and with Engine Techs it is quite mobile.

Also as @geek19 mentioned, they are great carriers.

5 hours ago, Garrett17 said:

Now that the Harrow has arrived I really shudder as a rebel player.

I don't think you have to. Every one I have talked to still thinks the VSD is not a great ship even with Harrow. Once you apply all the patches to the ship it seams to just be way to expensive for what it offers. Specially since you get an ISD for just a few points more that is better in almost every way. I hope I am wrong. I love the VSD and I would love for it to be more competitive but I am not convinced.

4 hours ago, eliteone said:

Also the Star Hawk itself. I pre-ordered one, and asked for a 2nd from Future Mrs. EO for Christmas* just to be able to field two big heavies, the Rebel equiv of dual ISD.

Do dual MonCals not count?

2 hours ago, JJ48 said:

Do dual MonCals not count?

Not when I'm commanding them using the Zap Brannigan School of Warfare method.

I want that new Rebel commander on a Pelta. I think she will be fun. We still dont know how the Onager works, so that will be interesting.

My local meta is mostly narrative based... as in, the rebel players are playing a narrative campaign using AoR and multiple characters in a Grand Campaign style format...

6 hours ago, LordCola said:

But what speaks against upgrading your Pelta? Not every ship has to be good naked.

The Pelta can too. A Dcaps, Intensify Firepower! Pelta can pack a punch and with Engine Techs it is quite mobile.

Also as @geek19 mentioned, they are great carriers.

For me it's the combination of no defensive retrofit+no defense token redundancy, no reroll ability and slow (sans engine techs). I'm ok with any two or maybe even three of those things but not all four. I'd probably think of it as decent if it could address one of those things but from a defensive and offensive standpoint it's the worst ship in the rebel lineup (not counting flotillas). No other rebel ship suffers from all those penalties at once and it's not a cheap ship. Once you bring a fleet command along you're looking at 61 pts minimum and keeping it fed usually means a flottila with comms net (common enough) or an officer setup like Raymus unless you only plan on using your fleet command say once. I figured that Liberator was a tacit admission on the part the designers that sometimes the pelta just doesn't generate enough value for the points it costs so they gave us a much cheaper option in those case where you really want a fleet command but won't need it for the whole game.

Also, the imperials get the benefit of being able to rotate through the entire fleet command suite if they want in a game. For the rebels to get even three you'd need a second Pelta, and that's just crazy talk. 🙃

It's not a terrible ship, but it's the definitely the ship I feel the most uneasy about using in a combat scenario barring as a carrier with AFFM. Typically though I only need that once so Liberator totally floats my boat.

I feel sorta similarly about Nebulons not named Yavaris but I'm totally open to giving the Vanguard a shot. It's like a half small/half medium ship with good potential options and at least it's native speed 3.

7 hours ago, eliteone said:

Not when I'm commanding them using the Zap Brannigan School of Warfare method.

I named my tie bomber ruthless strategists list after zap brannigan!

14 hours ago, Garrett17 said:

For me it's the combination of no defensive retrofit+no defense token redundancy,

What? The ship has awesome defense tokens. Its defensive setup is literally the same as the Gladiator (same tokens and no defensive retrofit) and the Pelta doesn't even want to get in close like the Gladiator, so it should be attacked by less dice and its defense tokens are more effektive on the bigger range. Also it has 4 Engineering and very good shields. I really don't think you can complain about the defensive capabilities of this ship at its price point.

14 hours ago, Garrett17 said:

no reroll ability

yeah, I mean, no ship has native reroll abilities. But it has access to Intensify Firepower! wich is perfectly adequate dice mitigation for its attack pools. So I don't see how you can complain about dice mitigation.

14 hours ago, Garrett17 said:

and slow

That it is! But at least it can take Engine Techs.

So it really is not bad at all of the aspects you have listed.

14 hours ago, Garrett17 said:

but from a defensive and offensive standpoint it's the worst ship in the rebel Lineup

Oh, I have to disagree very strongly!

Really, the worst in terms of defensive abilities? The cheapest Nebulon is only 5 points cheaper than the cheapest Pelta but it is soooooooooo much worse of in terms of defensive abilities. A ludicrously large arc with only one shield and no redirects. Do you really want to argue that the Nebulon is defensively better than a Pelta?!

As I just elaborated, the ship really does not do badly in terms of defense for its price.

And offensively the ship is absolutely underrated. Lets make a quick thought experiment. Imagine that you have a Pelta with IF!, a mechanism that feeds it a token every turn and 6 additional CR90s. Now lets imagine that every CR90 shoots this turn. They either shoot from two arcs or they use Concentrate Firepower to get an additional die. Likely each CR90 throws at least 3 dice spread over all of it's attacks. You very likely have one blanck per CR90. The Pelta now turns each one of them into one damage. The Pelta has just caused 6 damage on long range without having even attacked itself! That is insane. Just think about that. A MC80 Assault Cruiser with Ackbar (that's 152 points!) has an damage EV of 6 on long range. In a fleet that leverages the power of the Pelta it is not the worst offensive ship but easily one of the very best in the whole rebel lineup!

14 hours ago, Garrett17 said:

For the rebels to get even three you'd need a second Pelta, and that's just crazy talk. 🙃

The second place list at Gencon had two peltas if I remember correctly.

It turns out that I really love Peltas and have them in pretty much all of my Rebel fleets right now. (I play mostly Garm, Sato, and Ackbar with Rebels)

http://www.steelstrategy.com/2019/03/i-have-pelta-problem.html

http://www.steelstrategy.com/2019/08/the-ballad-of-garm.html

http://www.steelstrategy.com/2019/08/how-to-build-dumpster-fire-ballad-of.html

The best use of the Pelta seems to be as a trailer. It's slow, so let it lag behind your fleet and come in to finish off damaged ships. In that role my Peltas often get most of the kills in my fleet, even if they don't do the most damage.

ET assult pelta is pretty legit especially with IF its a good finisher with ex-racks.

7 hours ago, LordCola said:

What? The ship has awesome defense tokens. Its defensive setup is literally the same as the Gladiator (same tokens and no defensive retrofit) and the Pelta doesn't even want to get in close like the Gladiator, so it should be attacked by less dice and its defense tokens are more effektive on the bigger range. Also it has 4 Engineering and very good shields. I really don't think you can complain about the defensive capabilities of this ship at its price point.

yeah, I mean, no ship has native reroll abilities. But it has access to Intensify Firepower! wich is perfectly adequate dice mitigation for its attack pools. So I don't see how you can complain about dice mitigation.

That it is! But at least it can take Engine Techs.

So it really is not bad at all of the aspects you have listed.

Oh, I have to disagree very strongly!

Really, the worst in terms of defensive abilities? The cheapest Nebulon is only 5 points cheaper than the cheapest Pelta but it is soooooooooo much worse of in terms of defensive abilities. A ludicrously large arc with only one shield and no redirects. Do you really want to argue that the Nebulon is defensively better than a Pelta?!

As I just elaborated, the ship really does not do badly in terms of defense for its price.

And offensively the ship is absolutely underrated. Lets make a quick thought experiment. Imagine that you have a Pelta with IF!, a mechanism that feeds it a token every turn and 6 additional CR90s. Now lets imagine that every CR90 shoots this turn. They either shoot from two arcs or they use Concentrate Firepower to get an additional die. Likely each CR90 throws at least 3 dice spread over all of it's attacks. You very likely have one blanck per CR90. The Pelta now turns each one of them into one damage. The Pelta has just caused 6 damage on long range without having even attacked itself! That is insane. Just think about that. A MC80 Assault Cruiser with Ackbar (that's 152 points!) has an damage EV of 6 on long range. In a fleet that leverages the power of the Pelta it is not the worst offensive ship but easily one of the very best in the whole rebel lineup!

The second place list at Gencon had two peltas if I remember correctly.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree:

Regarding Demolisher: The Pelta can only get to speed 3 max. The Gladiator can get to 4 and is a lot more evasive and effective at doing what it does in just about any matchup across the table. A lot of the Gladiator's defense is in it's maneuverability and in the fact that it's hard to reliably stop it before it does what it does without devoting disproportionate resources to it. If at any point the empire can get or steal the first and last activation you can kiss even a fully upgraded home one goodbye. I've lived it. They may share the same defense token suite but the Pelta is nowhere near as threatening or evasive.

Regarding Intensify Firepower: As a rebel player this card doesn't fit my playstyle (or I might argue even the rebels generally speaking except MSU). Entrapment Formation, Take Evasive Action and AFFM are all better choices to build around as the rebels and offer a lot more. Most other ships can get access to guaranteed damage some other way (except the Pelta!) and unlike the other cards above, there's a comparatively greater probability you'll never actually need Intensify Firepower despite bringing it along and setting up the apparatus to use it. Compared to the aforementioned commands it's harder to guarantee if an Intensify Firepower setup is going to deliver it's money's worth.

Regarding Engine Techs, keep in mind the Pelta has to be resolving a nav command to do this. When taking along Entrapment or TEA this starts to become a tricky proposition if the Pelta actually needs the Nav command at some point itself unless you bring Raymus and Ahsoka and this brings us to an 81 point minimum starting value for the Pelta to be workable. Either that or you need to keep a flotilla with comms net constantly close by and have the flotilla feed it the token. I know there are other options (i.e. Hondo) but the setup is starting to get a little large.

And that's the thing, given the investment the Pelta is too valuable to risk in the early game because often you've built around it's fleet command ability. That's probably around 3-4 rounds where it's armament will do nothing.

Regarding the Nebulon being better. Barring the fleet command slot (which I realize is used to justify it's price) I do think the Nebulon is in fact a better choice as a combat chassis. Redundant brace is very helpful as brace cancels rather than moves damage and my typically partner is always bringing XI7s making the Nebulon one of the few ships that's a complete waste on. With Engine techs, the Nebulon can also maneuver better and and the support version has better flak. It slows rolls in then can jump to speed 4 (with dial, token and/or entrapment formation) to try and avoid the worst arc. The new aux shields team also helps though I haven't tried it yet. Now that said I don't love the Nebulon. I find them tricky to use but I can risk and sacrifice them early if need be whereas I typically want the Pelta alive because I've probably built my fleet around it to leverage whatever fleet command it's offering.

I should point out that my regular opponent often (though not always) uses Demolishers and Cymoons packing H9s and XI7s or QTCs which tend to constantly ruin my Pelta's day because I can't close, I can't ECM and often I can't outrun. Good on people who can make them work and the beauty of Armada is that everything is more or less viable but given the choice I'd rather be bringing ISD Chimaera (Cymoon or II) and 5 fleet commands rather than the Pelta and just one.

3 hours ago, Garrett17 said:

Regarding Intensify Firepower: As a rebel player this card doesn't fit my playstyle (or I might argue even the rebels generally speaking).

It might not be yours, but its DEFINITELY a good Rebel build. I've seen Nathan Coda do well with it last year, and @shmitty won GenCon because of it. It's a good card, Bront.

Quote

Entrapment Formation, Take Evasive Action and AFFM are all better choices to build around as the rebels and offer a lot more. Most other ships can get access to guaranteed damage some other way (except the Pelta!) and unlike the other cards above, there's a comparatively greater probability you'll never actually need Intensify Firepower despite bringing it along and setting up the apparatus to use it. Compared to the aforementioned commands it's harder to guarantee if an Intensify Firepower setup is going to deliver it's money's worth.

The argument I've heard/used is that by taking IF, you dont need the other ones. Dont need TRCs on my CR90 if I have IF instead.

Quote

Regarding Engine Techs, keep in mind the Pelta has to be resolving a nav command to do this. When taking along Entrapment or TEA this starts to become a tricky proposition if the Pelta actually needs the Nav command at some point itself unless you bring Raymus and Ahsoka and this brings us to an 81 point minimum starting value for the Pelta to be workable. Either that or you need to keep a flotilla with comms net constantly close by and have the flotilla feed it the token. I know there are other options (i.e. Hondo) but the setup is starting to get a little large.

Nah, I've done it with just straight Ahsoka and Hondo and IF, 70 points (and 2 of those are on another ship). Ahsoka for an eventual nav token if I dont need the change, but take a con fire token turn 2 and deploy on the back edge. Turn 3 you can trigger it, turn 4 hondo, and turn 5 discard. Most games are done by 5 anyways, but you can short it into turns 2-4 if needed.

7 hours ago, shmitty said:

It turns out that I really love Peltas and have them in pretty much all of my Rebel fleets right now. (I play mostly Garm, Sato, and Ackbar with Rebels)

http://www.steelstrategy.com/2019/03/i-have-pelta-problem.html

http://www.steelstrategy.com/2019/08/the-ballad-of-garm.html

http://www.steelstrategy.com/2019/08/how-to-build-dumpster-fire-ballad-of.html

The best use of the Pelta seems to be as a trailer. It's slow, so let it lag behind your fleet and come in to finish off damaged ships. In that role my Peltas often get most of the kills in my fleet, even if they don't do the most damage.

Don't get me wrong. I have them in most of my fleets too. But I resent them, especially in a squadron heavy build as I feel I have to push it into carrier service at that point and as a rebel typically facing down tons of scatter aces I would KILL to be able to bring flight controllers.

25 minutes ago, Garrett17 said:

Don't get me wrong. I have them in most of my fleets too. But I resent them, especially in a squadron heavy build as I feel I have to push it into carrier service at that point and as a rebel typically facing down tons of scatter aces I would KILL to be able to bring flight controllers.

The AFMK2 and Armored Cruiser say hi.

2 minutes ago, The Jabbawookie said:

The AFMK2 and Armored Cruiser say hi.

I just wish I could bring them and not bring the Pelta. I'm really glad Liberator is out since I usually only need AFFM once and I'm often bringing a corvette anyway.