4 minutes ago, Rocmistro said:

I don't understand how you can say that Agate on Admo is gilding the lily AND provides little or no marginal survivability....it's either one or the other.

If Admo is going to survive and adding Agate allows it to survive with slightly more health, you have added to it without adding much, if any, survivability. You have gilded the lily by adding to something that was already functioning as intended.

Well that's under the current paradigm of play for an MC30, which is get in from a flank, get 2 good rounds of shooting off, and then skip off to safety.

But what if you had the survivability to hang around another round, tank more shots, and kill more stuff?

That's not gilding the lily...that's 50% more murder.

12 minutes ago, Rocmistro said:

Well that's under the current paradigm of play for an MC30, which is get in from a flank, get 2 good rounds of shooting off, and then skip off to safety.

But what if you had the survivability to hang around another round, tank more shots, and kill more stuff?

That's not gilding the lily...that's 50% more murder.

If it works for you, go for it. Ima put her on a large, personally.

42 minutes ago, Rocmistro said:

Well that's under the current paradigm of play for an MC30, which is get in from a flank, get 2 good rounds of shooting off, and then skip off to safety.

It's true. My point is that I don't believe that brace is likely to give you that staying power. Brace is great, but it ain't scatter, and the MC30 has 4 hull. Either the shots are small enough that the value you're getting from brace is relatively small; or they're big enough that halving them isn't going to save the ship. Either way, you still have a pretty similar engagement profile to a traditional MC30: get in, crap all over everything, get out.

The basis of my opinion is that brace and Admonition don't synergize well, as Admo and Lando do.

Lando + Admonition is good because Lando increases the variance of the dice and Admonition is most useful against high-variance rolls. They synergize well because Admonition is a solid backstop for Lando's big downside, while Lando sets up optimal scenarios for Admo. This is not the case with Kyrsta and Admo.

On the other hand, special crits notwithstanding, in the best case (Admo a double) Admonition is saving you 1 extra damage when used in conjunction with brace. Because you're already halving the damage, Admonition is less impactful--it's actually an anti symmetry.

To be clear, I do think Kyrsta is amazing on an MC30. Your second MC30, where Lando and Admonition are on the other one. That's what I mean by gilding the lily: you're already spending 20 points to get an incredibly tanky MC30. I don't think you're getting enough additional value by spending 8 or 12 more to make it slightly more tanky.

The whole second tanky MC30 with Agate does sound extremely appealing. I'd have to really think that one through though. In my experience with MC30s, tanking the big shot has not really been the problem. The problem has been all the chip shots coming in from squadrons, plus the other light shots that land from ships.

I'm not at all confident that Agate brings enough value to a second MC30 compared to what a different commander brings in total to a fleet with 2+ MC30s (Rieekan being the obvious answer, but other choices too). The goal seems to be "how do I make this surprisingly difficult to kill ship (Admonition) even more hard to kill ?" It's a fun mental exercise, sure, but I don't think you actually get a great fleet out of it.

I’d still run Mothma.

1 hour ago, Madaghmire said:

I’d still run Mothma.

Especially with Foresight, which may be better than Admonition with her.

While we’re on the subject of Admonition and MC30s in general, has anyone tried Expert Shield Techs with MC30s? They seem potentially better than Officer Lando, particularly against bombers.

1 minute ago, Cpt ObVus said:

While we’re on the subject of Admonition and MC30s in general, has anyone tried Expert Shield Techs with MC30s? They seem potentially better than Officer Lando, particularly against bombers.

Lando on admo, EST on the rest IMO

22 hours ago, Vergilius said:

The whole second tanky MC30 with Agate does sound extremely appealing. I'd have to really think that one through though. In my experience with MC30s, tanking the big shot has not really been the problem. The problem has been all the chip shots coming in from squadrons, plus the other light shots that land from ships.

1 minute ago, Cpt ObVus said:

While we’re on the subject of Admonition and MC30s in general, has anyone tried Expert Shield Techs with MC30s? They seem potentially better than Officer Lando, particularly against bombers.

Two great things that go great together?

On 2/4/2020 at 7:48 AM, Ardaedhel said:

QFT.

Agate on Admo is gilding the lily.

You get little to no marginal survivability improvement on Agate/Admo over Lando/Admo. The best that can be said is that you're opening up the officer slot... or are you really ? I could see the argument if there was an officer that dramatically improved the MC30 offensively , but as it is, there aren't a lot of officers that are all that amazing on it. It's pretty much Lando, IO, or SFO. All good; none worth dropping Red Fish, Crit Fish, or Death Wish for.

Hmmm. What if the Agatenition took a salvo token then?

13 hours ago, Maturin said:

Two great things that go great together?

I ran expert shield techs on Foresight in my prime list. It is good. I’d still run Lando on Admo because you want one ship that can tank the really big shot. The second ship is alive to deliver the big shot based on maneuvering/positioning, but isn’t required to tank it.

3 hours ago, Muelmuel said:

Hmmm. What if the Agatenition took a salvo token then?

I don’t have an issue with the intrinsic value of this move in a vacuum, but I feel like there are just going to be better commander choices for the Admo fleet, or better ships in the fleet for Krysta.

1 minute ago, Madaghmire said:

I don’t have an issue with the intrinsic value of this move in a vacuum, but I feel like there are just going to be better commander choices for the Admo fleet, or better ships in the fleet for Krysta.

Yuppppppppp

On 2/4/2020 at 8:43 PM, Cpt ObVus said:

While we’re on the subject of Admonition and MC30s in general, has anyone tried Expert Shield Techs with MC30s? They seem potentially better than Officer Lando, particularly against bombers.

In general I'm not seeing the point of Expert Shield Techs. I'm not understanding how they work.

-If your opponent spends "accuracy" on your redirect, you still cannot use it via Expert Shield Tech, right? (You are still "Spending a defense token" with EST which the accuracy die prohibits.

-If your opponent XI7's you, you can redirect a max of 1 damage. So if you use EST, you're still just saving "1 damage".

-If you have 2 redirects, you are still only allowed to "spend" 1 per attack, regardless of what affect you are getting out of it, right? Thus, you can't (talking MC30's here) send 1 to reduce damage by 1 and 1 to redirect to a different hull zone, right?

Ok so it's basically useful when;

1. You're out of shields.

2. You get hit by a single "damage" attack. (ie squadrons).

Ok I think I just figured it out. It's mostly a squadron defense token.

Can the experts comment if there's anything I'm missing?

9 minutes ago, Rocmistro said:

1. You're out of shields.

2. You get hit by a single "damage" attack. (ie squadrons).

Ok I think I just figured it out. It's mostly a squadron defense token.

Can the experts comment if there's anything I'm missing?

I’m not responding as an “expert,” but I’m pretty sure those are the two occasions when ESTs work best.

Also great for negating plink damage on your way in.

6 hours ago, Rocmistro said:

In general I'm not seeing the point of Expert Shield Techs. I'm not understanding how they work.

-If your opponent spends "accuracy" on your redirect, you still cannot use it via Expert Shield Tech, right? (You are still "Spending a defense token" with EST which the accuracy die prohibits.

-If your opponent XI7's you, you can redirect a max of 1 damage. So if you use EST, you're still just saving "1 damage".

-If you have 2 redirects, you are still only allowed to "spend" 1 per attack, regardless of what affect you are getting out of it, right? Thus, you can't (talking MC30's here) send 1 to reduce damage by 1 and 1 to redirect to a different hull zone, right?

Ok so it's basically useful when;

1. You're out of shields.

2. You get hit by a single "damage" attack. (ie squadrons).

Ok I think I just figured it out. It's mostly a squadron defense token.

Can the experts comment if there's anything I'm missing?

I won't speak for expert, but I can try to explain what I see in the upgrade on an MC30.

The MC30 is a fragile platform. Anything at all you can do to reduce damage helps the ship survive. The ideal circumstance is any situation in which you do not need to redirect. So squadrons are part of that. Long range fire that is doing 1-4 damage is also good for that. Yes, you could always EST once you're out of shields, but the real point is to have shields around as a cushion for when you need them. And when 1-4 damage might be the difference between being on the table or not at the end of the game, it is a good upgrade.

I'd still pair Lando with Admo and the MC30T. But after running Ackbar MC30S in the prime, I can say that Foresight/EST/MC30S is also pretty potent, and probably potent in a number of non-Ackbar lists. And given we were already seeing some red dice fleets emerge and become more prevalent even before this latest set of releases, I could easily see it being appropriate in the emerging meta.

15 hours ago, Rocmistro said:

In general I'm not seeing the point of Expert Shield Techs. I'm not understanding how they work.

-If your opponent spends "accuracy" on your redirect, you still cannot use it via Expert Shield Tech, right? (You are still "Spending a defense token" with EST which the accuracy die prohibits.

-If your opponent XI7's you, you can redirect a max of 1 damage. So if you use EST, you're still just saving "1 damage".

-If you have 2 redirects, you are still only allowed to "spend" 1 per attack, regardless of what affect you are getting out of it, right? Thus, you can't (talking MC30's here) send 1 to reduce damage by 1 and 1 to redirect to a different hull zone, right?

Ok so it's basically useful when;

1. You're out of shields.

2. You get hit by a single "damage" attack. (ie squadrons).

Ok I think I just figured it out. It's mostly a squadron defense token.

Can the experts comment if there's anything I'm missing?

In terms of MC30’s this is more or less accurate, although I think you are prematurely dismissing its use in the XI7 case, since its strictly better to not take a damage on any hull zone than to simply shunt it.

It can also further reduce damage on ships with brace. You spend the token at the same time as brace, but then you resolve the effect at the same time as well, which means you choose which resolves first. Ex: ISD rolls six damage on my MC80. MC80 braces and redirects. Brace to 3, EST to 2.

Yeah thanks Mad, I can see it now. My ability to appreciate was being circumvented by focusing on the opportunity cost of pushing damage to different hull zone, as you can't spend multiple redirects.

1 hour ago, Madaghmire said:

In terms of MC30’s this is more or less accurate, although I think you are prematurely dismissing its use in the XI7 case, since its strictly better to not take a damage on any hull zone than to simply shunt it.

It can also further reduce damage on ships with brace. You spend the token at the same time as brace, but then you resolve the effect at the same time as well, which means you choose which resolves first. Ex: ISD rolls six damage on my MC80. MC80 braces and redirects. Brace to 3, EST to 2.

I see it as a higher utility Needa (and hence higher cost too). No need to swap out for an evade, but both your redirects (you chose a ship with at least 2 redirects right?) have the option to reduce a damage, at any range. Evade only cancels dice at long, and the rare double but that can be replicated by spending a brace and redirect together if that's the only heavy damage coming in that round

Hmmmm, Agate on a tank with 3 redirects and EST...